IslamicFinance.de

International Investment Bank (IIB) announced the disposal of a Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft, resulting in over 30% IRR for the Bank. The aircraft, which was purchased by IIB in a sale and leaseback transaction earlier this year, is on lease to a leading regional airline on a non-cancellable basis for a period of nine years, and has recently been sold to an international buyer. IIB is currently exploring other attractive deals in the aviation market, IIB Chief Executive Officer, Subhi Benkhadra said.

Qatar Islamic Bank will hold investor meetings in Asia, the Middle East and Europe starting on Friday for a possible benchmark offer of U.S. dollar-denominated Regulation S senior sukuk, leads said on Wednesday. The bank mandated Barwa Bank, Citi, HSBC, Noor Bank, QInvest and Standard Chartered as joint lead managers for the possible issue, which would be off Qatar Islamic's existing $1.5 billion Trust Certificate Issuance Programme. Benchmark usually means at least $500 million.

Sunrise Properties has secured a 515 million dirham ($140.22 million) Islamic loan for the development of a luxury hotel project, banking group Emirates NBD, the main arranger of the deal, said. Emirates NBD, joined by Doha Bank, are providing the money to finance the Emerald Palace Kempinski Hotel project on Dubai's Palm Jumeirha group of islands. The tenure and margin on the murabaha-structured loan were not disclosed. Bank lending to real estate sector remains buoyant, with credit to the construction and real estate sector totalling 216.2 billion dirhams in the second quarter of this year from 210.6 billion dirhams in the year ago period.

Family businesses in the GCC have made significant progress in putting corporate governance structures in place but are lagging when it comes to strict implementation — something that could eventually challenge their very existence, a study by the Gulf Family Business Council (GFBC) and McKinsey & Company has revealed. The study, which surveyed the largest GCC family-owned businesses, showed that only 33 per cent of GCC-based family businesses have fully implemented governance systems. The study recommends that the ‘rules of the game’ should be clearly stated to the next generation as early as possible to allow for effective succession planning and transition of leadership.

Saudi Arabia's Al Rajhi Bank posted its first quarterly rise in net profit in nine quarters, helped by lower expenses. Net profit rose 3.6 percent to 1.72 billion riyals ($458.8 million) for the three months to Sept. 30, in line with an average estimate from analysts of 1.77 billion. The bank had posted declining profits in the preceding eight quarters, which it attributed to higher provisioning and higher operating expenses. Al Rajhi said operating income fell by 4.1 percent to 10.15 billion riyals, while profits from special commissions increased 2.4 percent to 7.47 billion riyals. Loans and advances at the end September stood at 209.91 billion riyals, up 3.1 percent, while deposits rose 6.2 percent to 265.48 billion riyals.

Saudi Arabia’s NCB Capital (NCBC) has launched a new AlAhli Tadawul platform designed to empower clients with more efficient tools and all the support and information they need to stay informed of promising investment opportunities available. The new reports and smart analytical tools include free features that automatically analyze the market and highlight promising opportunities. The availability of various trading channels enables traders to trade and keep track of stocks at any time and from any place. Additionally, the TeleTrading Service enables users to trade anywhere, even without an Internet connection. Live up-to-the-second stock prices are provided to all traders free of charge.

The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) has announced a significant increase in the number of Islamic Finance qualifications taken in the Arabian Peninsula over the last 12 months. CISI recorded 111 of its Islamic Finance Qualification exams taken between August 2014 and August 2015, compared to 82 taken in the same period in 2013 -2014. The UAE was the country which saw the biggest increase in people undertaking the exams, with a 35 per cent increase from August 2014 to August 2015. As Dubai invests in the Islamic finance industry, this will accelerate the sector’s development in the rest of the region.

The Board of Directors of Alkhabeer Capital has accepted the resignation of Mr. Saleh Mohammed Binladen from his position as Chairman of the Board of Directors, for personal reasons. The board also announced the appointment of Mr. Musaad Mohammad Aldrees in his place as Chairman, effective October 7, 2015. Mr. Binladen said he was stepping down to reduce his broad responsibilities. Mr. Aldrees , a member of the board of Alkhabeer Capital since 2008, will serve as Chairman until the appointment of a new Board and Chairman in January 2016.

Saudi Arabia's Arab National Bank has issued SR2 billion ($533 million) of 10-year sukuk through a private placement, the kingdom's seventh largest lender by assets said in a bourse statement on Thursday. The bank has the right to call the sukuk after five years, it said. The yield was expected to be 140 basis points over the six-month Saudi interbank offered rate, the statement added. The proceeds of the issue will enhance the bank's capital in addition to allowing it to expand its activities through its Islamic window, the bank said.

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank has no current plans to raise more capital after a rights issue last month, its chief executive Tirad al-Mahmoud said, adding that the lender would eschew expansion to focus on existing markets. The largest Islamic lender in the emirate raised Dhs 504m ($137m) in September. Mahmoud said the bank would grow by “mid-single-digits” in 2015 and its capital was sufficient for this level, though he did not say what growth he was referring to. ADIB posted a 10.5 per cent rise in net profit in the second quarter. ADIB had no plans to expand into new markets and would instead focus on where it has existing operations, he added.

According to a 2011 report by Jones Lang LaSalle, the MENA and GCC region was in need of 3.5 million affordable homes. A 2015 update by JLL said that this shortage has in all likelihood increased since then. In Saudi Arabia, JLL estimated the shortage in 2011 to be around 400,000 homes, which has resulted from a rapidly growing population, a limited supply of completed developments and a lack of access to housing finance for middle-income earners, it said. For other Gulf markets, the roots of the problem are in the ground. Governments across the Gulf are being moved to take action.

Noor Bank is set to support an art and design exhibition at the Global Islamic Economy Summit 2015 (GIES) that will run on October 5th and 6th in Dubai. In partnership with Thomson Reuters, Noor Bank will spotlight new Islamic artwork at the event in its role as the official Arts and Design Sponsor of GIES 2015. Additionally, as part of Noor Bank's participation at the landmark summit, Hussain Al Qemzi, CEO of Noor Bank and Chairman of Awqaf & Minors Affairs Foundation will headline a session on Awqaf as a keynote speaker. GIES 2015 is scheduled to take place at the Madinat Jumeirah.

To expand its capital market, Oman will sell its first sovereign Islamic bond this week, the sultanate’s Ministry of Finance has announced. The country will open subscriptions for its first issue of sovereign sukuk on October 8 and close them on October 22. The rial-denominated issue will have a tenor of five years and will mature in 2020, with its profit rate set through a uniform price auction, according to the ministry. The issue will be open to sophisticated investors – usually taken to mean fund managers, banks and other institutions, as well as wealthy individuals – with a minimum subscription of OMR500,000 ($1.3 million).

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said that it lowered its long-term counterparty credit and insurer financial strength ratings on United Arab Emirates-based Takaful Re Ltd. (TRL) to 'BBB-' from 'BBB'. the ratings agency subsequently withdrew the ratings on TRL at its request. At the time of the withdrawal, the outlook was stable. The downgrade reflects the deterioration of TRL's business risk profile, mostly due to challenges within the Islamic insurance sector that have been exacerbated by the company's lack of scale, S&P said. The stable outlook at the time of withdrawal reflected S&P's view that TRL's risk-based capital would remain at extremely strong levels. This is supported by TRL's excess level of capital relative to its low level of premium income.

UAE's “aafaq Center for Research in Islamic Economy” will launch the first ‘Islamic Finance Encyclopedia’ and ‘Islamic Finance Directory’ in Arabic, at the 2015 Global Islamic Economic Summit taking place from October 5 to 6, 2015 at Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai. It is worth noting that “aafaq Center for Research in Islamic Economy” was recently established to provide thematic, multi-disciplinary research on Islamic finance. The ‘Islamic Finance Encyclopedia’ comprises twelve volumes covering all aspects of Islamic Finance, including, Shari’ah Framework of Islamic Finance; Emergence of Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs): A Comparative Historical Study with Conventional Financial Institutions; IFIs and Banking Services; Takaful Insurance, among others.

GFH Financial Group (GFH), the Bahrain based financial group, has repaid US$37.5 million to its debt syndicates. These repayments are in addition to US$33 million paid by GFH to its debt holders in 2014, and represents more than 30% of the Group's outstanding facilities. Today, the Group has outstanding debt of US$ 137 million under three facilities to be repaid on an amortized basis through 2018/2019. As of 30 June 2015, the Group's debt to equity ratio stood at only 0.24 underscoring the strength of GFH's balance sheet.

The proposed Shariah regulatory authority in the UAE will greatly benefit the local Islamic banking and finance industry an also help reduce the cost of institutions offering Islamic financial services, said Mubarak Rashed Al Mansoori, Governor of the UAE Central Bank. The proposed Shariah authority will have the key objective of – among others – issuing fatwa for products and services; introduce new and adopt existing international standards; documents regulations related to Islamic financial services; advise central bank on Shariah bank regulations to conduct monetary and financial surveillance. Al Mansoori said banks in the UAE have been innovative and creative in terms of introduction of the new Islamic products.

Across the GCC, public pension funds amount to US$397 billion, representing nearly a quarter of GDP and US$15,000 per national. This is according to EY's GCC Wealth and Asset Management 2015 report - "Fast growth, divergent paths". GCC Governments are relooking at existing models of both public and international pension funds to ensure they are sustainable. The size of GCC pension funds is relatively low, compared with employer-provided pension funds in the UK, for example, where these assets are larger than GDP and funds per individual are nearly four times the GCC average. There will be significant changes in the way GCC pension provision is looked at in the coming years because the current system may find it difficult to cope with the needs of GCC residents.

QInvest has launched the QInvest Pramerica Liquid Real Estate Fund in partnership with Pramerica Real Estate Investors, the real estate investment management business of U.S.-headquartered Prudential Financial, Inc. Pramerica will serve as the subadvisor of the Fund. The new Fund will invest exclusively in high yielding sharia'a-compliant real estate investment trusts and other real estate-related securities, sourced globally by the fully dedicated real estate securities team at Pramerica. The new Fund will be hosted on QMAP, QInvest's managed account platform.

At the 5th Global Islamic Finance Awards (GIFA) 2015 held at the Gulf Convention Center, the CEO of Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), Mr Khaled Al-Aboodi, was awarded the "Islamic Finance Personality of the Year" for his contribution to the development of the Global Islamic finance industry. The Global Islamic Finance Awards (GIFA) aims to highlight the best practices in Islamic banking and finance, and honor the efforts and contributions of individuals and institutions in the Islamic finance industry. Previous award recipients of GIFA include leaders such as Tun Abdullah Badawi, former Prime Minister of Malaysia and HE Shaukat Aziz, former Prime Minister of Pakistan.