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The Best Islamic Wealth Manager award was given to Bank Sarasin-Alpen at the Islamic Business and Finance Awards 2011 organized by CPI Financial, publisher of Islamic Business and Finance magazine. The award was accepted by Rohit Walia, Executive Vice Chairman & CEO of Bank Sarasin-Alpen Group and Mahboob Murshed, Managing Director at a ceremony held at the Emirates Towers Hotel, Dubai on 13th December, 2011.
Bank Sarasin-Alpen offers a complete range of first class private banking and investment advisory solutions to private and institutional clients in GCC and South Asia.

The latest report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) shows that GCC corporate banking profitability is on its way to recovering from the turmoil of the financial crisis.
Altough, as Loan Loss Provisions (LLPs) culminated in 2009 and corporate banking profitability consequently declined to levels below those of 2007, LLPs began to decrease in 2010 and have continued to decrease in the first half 2011.
Saudi Arabia has been at the center of this upward profit trend with the greatest annual increase in corporate banking profitability at 45% per year since 2009. Other GCC countries have shown a flat trend in profitability with the exception of Bahrain.

The Oman First Islamic Finance & Banking Conference will bring together more 400 high level participants including governors of central banks, other industry regulators, Islamic and commercial banking leaders, fund managers, Sharia and legal experts, and world level consultants.

Further details:
http://www.iktissadevents.com/events/OIF/1

Adnan Ahmed Yusuf Abdulmalek, head of Union of Arab Banks, noted that interest by Gulf lenders in Turkey’s Islamic banking market is on the rise. Leading Arab banks are currently inspecting opportunities to penetrate Turkey’s growing finance market, added the top executive of Union of Arab Banks.
Arab banks and investors have been stimulated by the decision for investing in Turkey’s banking sector and possible investors consider founding new banks as well as merger and acquisitions with Turkish banks.

Fitch Ratings has put Al Rajhi Bank's Long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'A+' with a Stable Outlook and its Viability Rating at 'a'.
The affirmation of the Viability Rating shows Al Rajhi's strong profitability, stable asset quality and large retail deposit base, whilst also taking into account some name concentration within the corporate loan portfolio in line with other Saudi banks.

Singaporean Muslims don't have the possibility to apply for Shari’ah compliant home financing in Singapore despite the Shari’ah structures being in place. The Monetary Authority of Singapore has established a range of Shari’ah-compliant Islamic banking contracts including Ijarah wa Iqtina and Diminishing Musharakah.
The Islamic Globe contacted a number of local and international Islamic finance institutions who admitted to a comprehensive lack of products suitable for the man on the street.
Local reports imply that the majority of Maybank Islamic’s customers in Singapore are non-Muslim.

Bahrain’s Gulf International Bank (GIB) has finished the pricing and closing of its three-year $300m Sukuk through a private placement.
The Sukuk certificates will have a profit rate of six-month US dollar Libor plus 130bps and paid out on a semi-annual basis. The Sukuk will mature on December 7, 2014.

Bankers embraced the GCC backed peace deal after nine months of sometimes viciously violent fighting in Yemen’s own take on the ‘Arab Spring’, a new government of reconciliation being sworn in to replace President Saleh’s regime in Yemen.
It’s still too early for the Islamic banks to talk about improoving full operations, but Saeed al-Qurashi, head of research at Saba stated that business is picking up as the unrest fades away and the reconstruction begins.

It seems that The Islamic Republic of Iran was the first country to introduce Sukuk to the financial market.
Mohammad Sajjad Siahkarzadeh noted that Iran arranged the operational mechanisms for issuing Sukuks in 1994 and introduced the mechanisms in the second Islamic Banking conference in Tehran in that year.
Siahkarzadeh also added that companies finance their operations using different financial tools such as selling stocks, bonds, etc, underlinning the fact that issuing Islamic bonds (Sukuk) is a means for funding projects.

The sukuk market is one of the fastest growing segments in the global financial market. Muhammad Al-Bashir Muhammad al-Amine shows this in the introduction of his book titled “Global Sukuk and Islamic Securitisation Market - Financial Engineering and Product Innovation”.
The book represents the latest analytical offering on the subject of sukuk and was published by Brill under its Arab and Islamic law series.
The point that the author tries to make is that sukuk market dynamics is as complex as other asset classes whether in Muslim jurisdictions or non-Muslim ones. These relate to a cornucopia of problems - regulatory framework, enabling legislation, ratings, Shariah structures, purchase undertaking, guarantees, especially third party Sukuk guarantees, SPVs (special purpose vehicles), trust laws, court procedure (in case of defaults and recourse to law especially for different creditors), listings, secondary market, arbitration clauses and so on.
Therefor, any analysis will have to begin from the basic proposition of the dynamics of the issuer jurisdiction, and these vary dramatically from country to country.

Sarawak Energy Bhd (SEB) intends to borrow an additional RM1.5bil in January 2012 in the form of Islamic debt (sukuk) under its RM15bil Sukuk Musyarakah Programme. This is in addition to its launch of RM3bil of sukuk in June this year which was oversubscribed by three times.
The RM1.5bil obtained next year would be consumed by SEB to fund the progress payments of some of its power plants and transmission lines currently being constructed as well as other capital expenditure requirements.
The joint lead managers for this second sukuk issuance under the Sukuk Musyarakah Programme are: AmInvestment Bank Bhd, Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd and RHB Investment Bank Bhd.

Malaysia is awaited to continue its strong 60% contribution to global sukuk issuance next year, supported by projects under the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).
HSBC Amanah stated that this year a significant growth in sukuk was noticed, principally driven by issuance out of the country.
HSBC remained optimistic about the future over the medium term but anticipated some challenges in 2012.

A memorandum of agreement (MOA) for a capacity building initiative of the private sector in the field of Islamic finance was signed between the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD) and the International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF).
The MOA was signed by ICD’s CEO and General Manager Mr. Khaled Al-Aboodi and INCEIF President and Chief Executive Officer Mr. Daud Vicary Abdullah.
As a result of the agreement, the ICD will counterpart the INCEIF-implemented program Charted Islamic Finance Professional (CIFP) participants learning experience through its corporate attachments within ICD and its investee companies globally, with its reputable regional partners and within the IDB Group.

Pakistan International Airlines Corp (PIA) raised $90 million (Dh330 million) through an Islamic syndicated fin-ancing facility.
Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Al Hilal Bank, Citibank, and United Bank Limited organized the facility being the mandated lead arrangers and joint bookrunners.
Clifford Chance and Haidermota & Co was the legal counsel to the arrangers, PIA being represented by Mandviwalla & Zafar.

Saudi Arabia is discussing with banks the possibility to launch a riyal-denominated Islamic bond, or sukuk as the kingdom abandons its aversion to sovereign-level debt to help build a local currency yield curve.
Talks are ongoing between the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency and local and international banks with operations in the kingdom, with an issue forseen in the first quarter of next year. The sukuk will be marketed by a governmental agency or a state fund.

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) stated that it had fully paid an $800 million, five-year Islamic bond which matured on December 12, 2011.
The bank had launched the maturing Sukuk in 2006 as part of a $5 billion trust certificate programme.

Finance Minister Mehmet ?im?ek has the strong oppinion that the global economy would not have to deal with so many ongoing problems if the world would have adopted and effectively used Islamic financial tools, which are relatively more flexible against shocks.
Underlining that the importance and role of participation banking in maintaining stable economic growth have so far been underestimated by many, the minister assigned the recent problems in world markets to the ignorance of people.

Sukuk will fund the new $7.2 billion airport project that is anticipated to issue in Jeddah within two months, inspite of a four-week delay of works related to the project. The statement came from head of the General Authority of Civil Aviation in Saudi Arabia, Prince Fahd bin Abdullah bin Mohammed al-Saud.
He also added that there are plans to change the General Authority of Civil Aviation to a stock-holding company and it will constitute four companies, specializing in four departments including international airports, domestic airports, air navigation, technology transfer and information.

Standard & Poor's (S&P) is inspecting again the credit ratings on 50 banks in the Middle East and North Africa under a new set of criteria, a move that could arise in higher funding costs for lenders already hit by the euro zone crisis and the Arab Spring revolts.
The agency reduced its ratings on 15 big global banks last month, mostly in the Europe and the US, because of the revamp of its ratings criteria.
JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, Goldman Sachs, Barclays Plc and HSBC Holdings Plc were among the banks that had their ratings cut by one notch each.

International Islamic (QIIB) chairman and managing director Sheikh Dr Khalid bin Thani al-Thani and Morocco’s new Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane discussed in a meeting the prospects of setting up an Islamic bank and an insurance company in the North African country.
They analyzed ways to further strengthen bilateral ties between the two countries with particular focus on Qatari investments in Morocco.
Sheikh Khalid proposed the opening of a joint venture Islamic bank and an insurance company in Morocco with majority participation (51%) by the North African country’s citizens and the remainder with Qataris (49%).