IslamicFinance.de

Kuwait Finance House Investment Company (KFH-Investment) has participated in arranging USD 750 mln debut sukuk for the emirate of Sharjah. Emad Al Monayea, Board Director and Chief Executive Officer, KFH-Investment stated that the sukuk witnessed 10-time oversubscription where order book was about USD7.85 billion from 250 accounts. He added that the government plans to continue to use borrowing to fund priority capital investment. He explained that rating agencies Moody’s and S&Ps assigned sukuk A and A3 ratings supported by the stable future outlook. Talking about the allocation of the debut sukuk, he said that Middle East is 50 per cent, UK 20 per cent, rest of Europe 11 per cent, Asia 14 per cent and others five per cent.

As banks around the world gear up to meet tough Basel III regulatory standards, Islamic lenders face a source of uncertainty that could prove expensive for them: how regulators will treat their deposits. Because interest payments are not allowed by sharia principles, Islamic banks obtain deposits mostly through profit-sharing investment accounts (PSIAs), which are generally considered to be more volatile than conventional deposits. Islamic banks are expected to be required to offset that volatility under Basel III by increasing the amount of high-quality liquid assets (HQLAs) which are in short supply. The PSIA issue may increase pressure on central banks and governments around the Islamic world to address some longstanding problems in Islamic finance. One is the small supply of HQLAs.

According to a statement by Prime Minister Hisham Qandil, Egypt will not use the Suez Canal or other state assets to back sukuk issues. The use of public assets such as the Suez Canal and public facilities for the issuance of instruments is excluded by the bill, which has been intensively discussed recently. Since Islam forbids interest payments, bonds must be backed by specific assets and pay investors with revenue from those assets. However, the Islamic Research Academy insists that the bill could allow authorities to abuse their control of public assets.

An announcement of Gatehouse Bank plc states that the bank has a strong set of interim results for the first six months of 2012. Profit projections have been exceeded by almost 10% with a total of more than $3.2 million (GBP 2.1 million). This shows that the bank’s business and operating model is maturing out of its start-up phase. The bank is also close to meeting its 2012 financial plan, since the income for the same period is £6,121k in comparison with £1,719k for the comparative period - a 250% increase. Thus, substantial growth and wealth preservation on behalf of its investors is delivered.