Banks who are in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, will have weaker earnings and profitability this year, due deterioration in nearly all their sources of income said Junaid Ansari, head of Research and Strategy at Kamco Invest, Kuwait. Conventional banks and the Islamic financial institutions will record weaker performance he said, but Islamic banks, due to their structure and focus, may cope better.
Issuance of Sukuk is up all around the world, up on last year, due to current economic factors and the goodwill for the instrument among global investors
The good news on the Sukuk front is continuing. The proportion of Sukuk bond issuance hit a record in the first quarter of 2016 in the main markets for this form of finance, said Fitch Ratings. According to Fitch’s data, there is a clear upwards trend in use of Shari'ah-compliant borrowing as more countries create legal frameworks to support issuance and as issuers try to attract a broader investor base, including Islamic finance investors.
Total new Sukuk issuance in the Gulf Cooperation Council, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Singapore and Pakistan was around $11.1 billion in the first quarter of 2016, with a maturity of 18 months. Issuance was up 22% from the fourth quarter of 2015 and 21% from a year earlier, while non-Sukuk bond issuance of $17.1 billion was down 23% quarter on quarter and 45% year on year. Sukuk represented 39.3% of total bond and Sukuk issuance in these countries during the quarter—the highest proportion in the past eight years.
The revival of investor sentiment and interest in initial public offerings in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries experienced in 2014, slowed down in the first quarter of 2015, slightly picking up pace in the second and further slowing down in third quarter of the year, according to PwC's Capital Markets and Accounting Advisory Services team.
Regional IPO activity in Q3 is usually slower due to summer holidays, the holy month of Ramadan and Eid. This seasonal trend was perhaps exaggerated in Q3 as markets absorbed the impact of continued lower oil prices, growing geopolitical concerns and wider economic uncertainty, thus potentially impacting new issuers coming to market.
Maybank Islamic, is one of the leading arrangers of sukuk in the world, has viewed Gulf Cooperation Council, including Qatar, as its priority region in mobilising funds through Shariah-principled bonds.
“The GCC is definitely on our radar. It all depends on what kind of opportunities are available,” said Nor Shahrizan Sulaiman, deputy chief executive of Maybank Islamic, which is wholly-owned by Maybank Group with strong credit ratings from Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s.
The lender, a leading Islamic bank in the Asean region with assets to the tune of $42.65bn as on June 30, 2015, has a branch in Bahrain and a 30% stake in Anfaal Capital in Saudi Arabia.
Maybank is exploring opportunities in the Middle East through its stake in the Saudi Arabia’s Anfaal Capital. Almost 90% of the Maybank Islamic’s balance sheet is domestic and the remaining 10% is from overseas operations, according to Sulaiman.