IslamicFinance.de

THE Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank will be preoccupied with two developments in 2011 apart from its established plan of action. This is the progress toward the launch of its mega bank project and the other is the continuation of its trust certificate (sukuk) program.
The mega bank project was promoted by Saleh Kamel, head of Dallah Albaraka Group, who has been trying to get it launched for the last few years. But his failure to get the project started off through the support of both government and private investors saw the project somehow passed on to the IDB. The plan is to launch a mega bank that will effectively be an Islamic Interbank bank, with the aim of providing short-term liquidity to the global Islamic banking market and of promoting the trading of sukuk in the secondary market by acting as a market maker.
CIMB of Malaysia, Citigroup, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank acted as joint lead managers and joint book-runners, and NCB Capital of Saudi Arabia acted as co-lead manager for this transaction. The success of IDB's transaction was underpinned by a comprehensive international road show covering Asia, the Middle East and Europe.