IslamicFinance.de

Malaysia’s Shariah-compliant BIMB Investment Management launched the world’s first environmental, social and governance (ESG) sukuk fund on August 1. BIMB’s ESG Sukuk Fund is the company’s fifth ESG-focused fund as a result of its partnership since 2015 with London-based Arabesque Asset Management. BIMB Investment CEO Najmuddin Mohd Lutfi said the company plans to launch more ESG that incorporates fintech like artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, data analytics. The next investment focus could be in U.S. equity and multi-asset funds.

The Saudi Real Estate Refinance Company (SRC) plans to begin issuing sukuk in late September or early October 2018. SRC aims to refinance 20% of Saudi Arabia's primary home loans market, which authorities hope to expand to SAR 500 billion by 2020. Currently Saudi Arabia’s primary home loans stands at SAR 290 billion. Fabrice Susini, CEO of Saudi Real Estate Refinance Company, said that the company will now begin issuing Sukuk to raise money, first in Saudi riyals but eventually in foreign currencies. The company was founded in 2017 by the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and has so far operated with financing from the sovereign wealth fund and short-term deals with banks.

Dana Gas has completed refinancing its $700 million sukuk which has been sized down to $530m. The issuance of the debt instrument had been completed and listed on the Euronext Dublin, previously known as the Irish Stock Exchange. Dana has paid $235m in redemptions, profit payments and early participation fees bringing an end to its long legal battle. Dana Gas CEO Patrick Allman-Ward said the new sukuk represented a fair consensual deal for all sukuk holders. The new sukuk will have a three-year life, maturing in October 2020, with a new profit rate of 4% per annum. Legal proceedings in courts in the UK and UAE have been brought to an end by all parties. Last month, Dana Gas received about $44m in dividends from Kurdistan Region of Iraq for the first half of the year and expected its output from operations there to rise by 25% in the third quarter.

The National Mortgage Corp of Malaysia (Cagamas) has issued a RM825 million 1-year bond and sukuk comprising RM800 million Conventional Medium Term Notes (CMTN) and RM25 million Islamic Medium Term Notes (IMTN). Proceeds will be used to fund the purchase of mortgage and Islamic home loans. With this move the aggregate primary issuance by Cagamas has reached RM9.3 billion for 2018, marking a 24% increase in the company's primary supply as compared to 2017's year-to-date total of RM7.5 billion. Cagamas CEO Datuk Chung Chee Leong said the CMTN issue was concluded via reopening of an existing bond tranche which marked the company's second reopening exercise for the year.

Pakistan is considering to launch dollar-denominated bond and Sukuk bond to tap a favorable response from expatriates in order to tackle the looming economic crisis. Finance minister Asad Umar said the coming government will have to take tough decisions in the first six weeks after coming into power. Asad promised to grant independence to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics in order to get reliable official data on various sectors of the economy. He pledged to take action on it in the first 100 days of government. The situation has touched such an alarming position as the current account deficit used to be in the range of $2 billion on per annum basis, which now peaked to $2 billion on monthly basis.

Saudi Arabia announced the completion of its first sukuk issuance under the primary dealers program. The Saudi government has been a regular issuer of Islamic bonds since the Ministry of Finance established a Saudi riyal-denominated sukuk program last year. In the new primary-dealer system, the Saudi debt management office appointed five local banks to act as primary dealers for local government securities, namely National Commercial Bank, Samba Financial Group, Saudi British Bank, Bank Al-Jazira and Alinma Bank. The appointed primary dealers purchase sukuk sold at auction directly from the government and later place these securities in the secondary market for final investors, acting as market makers for government securities. The government expects that the primary-dealers scheme will develop the local government sukuk market and the debt capital markets in Saudi Arabia.

The aggregate primary issuance of bonds and sukuk by GCC entities increased by 9.64 per cent to $95.25 billion in first half of 2018, compared to the same period in 2017.

Gulf Finance House (GFH) has fully settled its $200 million (Dh734 million) sukuk, which was originally drawn in 2007. The facility, which had its final maturity in July 2018, has now been settled with a recent payment of an outstanding amount of $34 million. GFH posted a 9% increase in its consolidated net profit for the first quarter to March. The total net profit rose to $36.89 million (Dh135.5 million) in the three months to March up from $33.55 million in the first quarter of 2017.

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) plans to maintain growth and pay off some of its old debt. The board of ADIB is recommending to increase the bank’s issued capital through more than a Dh1.16 billion rights issue. The proposed deal includes issuing 464 million new shares at a nominal face value of Dh1 per share. The bank’s board has also proposed the issuance of a $750m (Dh2.75 billion) perpetual tier 1 sukuk, and the repayment of its $1bn hybrid tier 1 sukuk issued in 2012. ADIB’s vice-chairman Khamis Buharoon said the pace of the bank's growth has been fast, increasing its number of customers to 1 million in the UAE, nearly double the number it had five years ago. He noted that the bank was raising capital to maintain its growth trajectory, while maintaining a capital buffer.

Speaker of the Niger State House of Assembly, Alhaji Ahmed Marafa Guni, has explained why the house rejected to access N21.5 billon Sukuk bond for infrastructure development. He said the house discovered a lot of discrepancies in the bond deal and, therefore, decided to send it back to the Executive. He added there were hidden costs in the loan which would tie down the state for several years. The speaker said the sukuk request could still be re-presented if those discrepancies are addressed. The government said it had asked the assembly to stay action on the request because of insinuations that the money was meant for the 2019 general election campaign.

The Egyptian government plans to issue dollar-dominated and euro-dominated sukuk over the next fiscal year. Finance Minister Mohamed Maait made the announcement, expecting that the issuance of the Sharia-compliant bonds would attract huge demand. He added that the government would introduce amendments to the existing laws to enable the issuance. On April 11, the government approved a draft law to establish a sovereign fund aimed at making the best use of state assets with a capital of 5 billion Egyptian pounds (about $279 million). The Egypt Fund will benefit several infrastructure projects, create more job opportunities and reduce the budget deficit. The Egyptian government is also planning to float shares in state-owned companies to draw more local and foreign investors to the stock market.

Le royaume chérifien se prépare à lancer son premier sukuk pour un montant de 105 millions de dollars. Le ministre des Finances, Mohamed Boussaïd s’est voulu clair et rassurant indiquant notamment que le Maroc émette son premier sukuk souverain dans les semaines à venir. D’est pour la matérialisation de cette émission que le Conseil des ministres, tenu le 7 juin 2018 a adopté un projet de décret permettant aux autorités monétaires de fixer les caractéristiques et les modalités d’émission des sukuk souverains. La Banque centrale marocaine avait accordé des licences à cinq banques islamiques et autorisé trois autres banques traditionnelles à ouvrir des fenêtres islamiques.

Egypt is considering tapping the international sukuk market in the coming fiscal year, as it looks to diversify funding sources. The issuance would mark a revival of a plan shelved since 2013 when the government issued the law to pave the way for the country’s first Islamic bond. Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said that the ministry has yet to discuss how much it wants to raise from conventional bond sales in the coming fiscal year. The focus is shifting toward long term borrowing. The government is also planning on launching the first offerings of stakes in public sector companies in July or August. The initial stakes are expected to raise between 15 billion and 18 billion pounds.

Morocco is preparing to issue its first sovereign sukuk worth 1 billion dirhams ($105 million). According to Finance Minister Mohamed Boussaid, the legal framework is now prepared and issuance is expected in the coming weeks. Earlier, the cabinet adopted a decree allowing financial authorities to define different types of sovereign sukuk, in line with the opinion of Morocco's council of Muslim scholars. Last year, Morocco's central bank approved five requests to open Islamic banks and allowed subsidiaries of three French banks to sell Islamic products. Morocco is the most advanced among its North African neighbours in developing Islamic finance, but Tunisia and Algeria have also started to explore Islamic banking.

The UAE's Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) said that issuers of Islamic securities should improve disclosure. Issuers should specify how transaction resources and revenues would be treated if a security were deemed no longer compatible with the provisions of sharia. Issuers should also specify whether the Islamic securities being issued are tradeable under sharia rules. In addition, the SCA set out basic provisions for the composition and responsibilities of sharia boards. The SCA regulation provides a general framework for disclosure around these issues, not a detailed template. Nevertheless, the regulation is one of a number of initiatives that could support the UAE's sukuk market.

Malaysia will remain the market leader in global sukuk issuance despite recent delays and cancellations of mega projects. CIMB Islamic Bank CEO Rafe Haneef said the delays of some mega projects would have some impact sukuk deals, but it is still business as usual for Malaysia. Last year, Malaysia had issuances of over US$50 billion. According to Moody’s Investor Services, Malaysia continues to remain the world’s largest sukuk with an estimated 44% of total sovereign sukuk outstanding in 2017. Issuance grew 17% in 2017 to some US$100 billion. CIMB Investment Bank topped Bloomberg’s Underwriter League Table for ringgit bonds for 12 years running. Going forward, Rafe expects issuances will come from both the infrastructure and corporate space.

UAE energy producer Dana Gas announced that a large majority of holders of its outstanding $700 million sukuk had consented to a proposed restructuring of the notes. The company, which last year refused to repay creditors, reached last month a restructuring agreement after a long and complex legal battle. Following the launch of a tender and exchange offer on May 22, 93.69% of the holders approved the terms of the proposed restructuring, exceeding the minimum required 75% approval threshold.

According to Fitch Ratings, the moderate growth in sukuk issuances in the first quarter underpins continued investor interest, but it also points out to structural constraints. The total volume of sukuk rated by Fitch for the three-month period through to March end, stood at $80 billion (Dh294bn), a 6% rise from the figures recorded at the end of 2017. New sukuk issuance with a maturity of more than 18 months from the Arabian Gulf states, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey and Pakistan came in at $14.9bn for the first quarter of 2018, a modest 1% year-on-year rise. The issuances during the first quarter of 2018 were largely driven by the GCC region, whose funding needs are likely to fall if oil prices stay high. Issuer funding needs and investor appetite for the remainder of the year will be determined by factors including oil prices and tighter global financing conditions.

According to the latest statistics by RAM Ratings, a total of $12 billion worth of Sukuk was issued in March 2018, bringing global Sukuk issuance to $30 billion in Q1 2018, a 44.4% surge from $20.8 billion for the same period last year. The increase is likely due to a boost from Saudi Arabia with issuance reaching $6.5 billion as at end-March 2018. Malaysia had issuances rising from $9.6 billion to $11.5 billion, accounting for the second-largest year-on-year increase, followed closely by Indonesia at $5.5 billion, the UAE at $3.3 billion and Turkey at $1.4 billion. Malaysia retained the top spot in terms of global Sukuk issuance with a 38.2% market share worth $11.5 billion as at end-March 2018. Saudi Arabia stayed in second place with a 21.7% share worth $6.5 billion, Indonesia closed on third place with 18.2% and the UAE with 10.8%.

Saudi Arabia's finance ministry sold 3.95 billion riyals (USD1.05 billion) of domestic Sukuk in its monthly sale by re-opening an issue originally made last month. It sold 3.35 billion riyals of five-year Sukuk, 350 million riyals of seven-year and 250 million riyals of 10-year. Last month, the ministry sold 5.0 billion riyals of domestic Sukuk.