Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
Kuveyt Turk, the Turkish arm of Kuwait Finance House , has priced its $350m five-year sukuk, lead managers said in a document on Thursday. The paper priced at par with a spread of 447.5 basis points over midswaps and carried a profit rate of 5.875 percent.
HSBC Bank , Liquidity Management House and Standard Chartered were bookrunners on the transaction, with Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank and Commerzbank joining the trade in a lead manager capacity……………………………………….Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s filing of prospectus for a $2 billion Islamic bond program for listing on the Irish Stock Exchange has been approved by the Central Bank of Ireland.
New York-based bank’s Goldman Sachs International unit set up Global Sukuk Company Limited, which is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, as trustee and seller of so-called murabaha trust certificates, according to the prospectus, published on the Dublin-based central bank’s website………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
Ireland’s burgeoning Islamic finance industry got a boost yesterday when financial behemoth Goldman Sachs was approved by the Central Bank to list a $2 billion “sukuk” bond on the Irish Stock Exchange, the Global Sukuk Company.
The bond, incorporated in the Cayman Islands, is compliant with Sharia, Islamic religious law, and will act as a trustee and seller of “murabaha” trust certificates. Murabaha is a contract whereby the seller must disclose its profit to the buyer……………………………………….Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said today that its rating on Tenaga Nasional Bhd. (BBB+/Stable/–, axA+/axA-1) is unaffected by a proposed Malaysian ringgit (MYR) 5 billion sukuk issue. Our rating already factors in the likelihood that Tenaga will incur higher debt to fund a planned 1,000 megawatt supercritical coal-fired power plant.
We will further assess the impact of increased debt after the company releases its audited accounts for the full year ended Aug. 31, 2011. The results are expected in November 2011……………………………………….Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
Demonstrating its Islamic finance expertise, Linklaters recently advised on the issuance of 3.749 billion riyals (about $1 billion) worth of sukuk, or Islamic bond certificates, by Arabian Aramco Total Services Company (AATSC) in a transaction that represents the first-ever Sharia-compliant greenfield project sukuk.
Acting as international legal counsel, Linklaters advised Deutsche Securities Saudi Arabia, Samba Capital & Investment Management Co and Saudi Fransi Capital as joint lead managers and joint bookrunners on the issuance of the sukuk certificates, which are part of the wider financing for a $14 billion, 400,000-barrel-per-day refinery and petrochemical project at the Jubail Industrial City in Saudi Arabia……………………………………….Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
Recent regulatory changes in Kuwait and Qatar, retail client preferences for Shariah-compliant banking products, and stronger balance sheets and funding positions, offer better growth prospects for Islamic banks compared with conventional peers, HSBC said as it initiated coverage on four Islamic banks.
The brokerage initiated Saudi Arabia’s Alinma Bank and Qatar Islamic Bank with “overweight”. In an October note, the brokerage said it expects Alinma, which has no legacy credit risk in its loan portfolio, to double its market share in the medium term, helped mainly by corporate lending………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
Now that Islamic banking and finance is a trillion dollar industry (US$ 1.14 trillion according to the Global Islamic Finance Report 2011), the ability of Islamic banks to influence government policy is much greater than it was fifteen years ago.
However, there are some state-owned institutions and corporates in different parts of the world, which are resisting change by proclaiming that they are already shari’a compliant and that their shari’a compliancy is sufficient to ignore further external requirements………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
Nearly 200 Toronto-area Muslim homeowners face an uncertain future after the company holding their mortgages was ordered into receivership.
Since 2005, UM Financial has offered loans and mortgages to people who want to adhere strictly to Islamic law (Shariah), under which no interest can be charged on a loan……………………………………….Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
Intel Corp is working with Pakistan Islamic bank Meezan to offer the nation’s consumers their first large-scale hire-purchase scheme for personal computers as the technology company seeks to increase its market share in the country, according to a Financial Times report.
Intel, whose scheme will be compliant with sharia, or Islamic law, is also considering expanding the scheme to other emerging markets, the report said……………………………………….Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
Europe can learn and gain from Islamic finance, given that financial institutions under it, have remained stable against the backdrop of the eurozone debt crisis. This observation was made by Luxembourg’s Minister of Finance, Luc Frieden.
Frieden said despite the credit crunch that had impacted Europe’s banks, Islamic financial institutions had weathered the global crisis and emerged to be the most well managed……………………………………….Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) will host the 5th International Islamic Capital Market Forum (IICMF) on 10 November 2011. The 5th IICMF will gather local and international experts to discuss and deliberate on the current state of Islamic finance.
The forum provides a platform for these international experts to discuss the current model of Islamic finance. The discussions will focus on how a risk sharing system can address some of the issues arising from the risk transfer system practised by the conventional financial industry……………………………………….Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
In the 20th century, getting more success and establishing a strong position of Islamic finance against conventional banking was just a dream but in today’s Muslim world that dream has, at least partly come true.
Questions were raised if it was possible to develop an Islamic financial system different from the conventional one? Now it has been proved that even without conventional banking system, Islamic finance has been able to make a strong platform………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
CIMB Group Holdings Bhd (CIMB) launched its Islamic securities services at the sidelines of the IFN 2011 Investors and Issuers Asia Forum recently aiming to reinforce its position as a fully-integrated service provider.
CIMB said, “We offer syariah-compliant securities services on a single platform to institutions and individuals, both domestic and abroad……………………………………….Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
The use of Islamic finance has not been deep enough in equity markets worldwide and major stock exchanges should emulate the accessibility in Malaysia’s stock exchange to syariah-compliant stocks, says an industry practitioner.
“In terms of Islamic finance, the reach out to equity market is not very deep yet globally, especially the public equities traded around the world……………………………………….Full Article: Source
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Laxman | Email|Print
Tharwa Investment Company announced that Tharwa Islamic Fund has been rated as the best performing Kuwaiti Islamic Fund according to the quarterly report that has recently been released by Zawya.com; a report that rates all the investment funds throughout the region on a quarterly basis and is considered to be a first-of-its-kind in the Middle East.
Commenting on this performance, Abdullatif Al-Muzaini, Tharwa Investment Company’s Assistant Vice President for Local & Arab Countries, said: “We are proud of the excellent results that have been achieved by Tharwa Islamic Fund since the beginning of 2011, having outperformed all the market indices to become the best performing Islamic Fund in Kuwait.(Press Release)
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