Middle East Bonds

The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) has mandated eight banks to roadshow a benchmark five year Reg S sukuk with a view to adding a 10 year tranche as well.

Qatar National Bank (QNB) kept the momentum in the offshore renminbi bond market going with a new issuance on Tuesday, showing there is still appetite for the currency.

First Abu Dhabi Bank raised $650m with its market return on Monday, as Gulf Corporation Council financial supply continued with Union National Bank.

The Commercial Bank of Qatar debuted in Swiss francs on Tuesday, selling three year bonds to ‘the who’s who’ of the Swiss franc bond market, according to a banker on the deal. CBQ’s trade is the best illustration yet of Swiss investors growing more comfortable with Middle Eastern financial credit.

After a three week wait, First Abu Dhabi Bank has deemed the market constructive enough to open books on its new five year sukuk, and had crushed the spread to 4bp over its existing bonds on Monday.

Saudi Arabia’s debt markets are open for business, the hiring charge is on and foreign banks are flooding in, but there has been a struggle to build a local force of primary bond market bankers, boding ill for the capital markets expansion the country is hoping for.

QInvest’s head of debt capital market and financial institutions has left the bank earlier this week.

It could be a clash of the Abu Dhabi banking titans as Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is updating its MTN programme — a possible precursor to a bond issue — while First Abu Dhabi Bank is poised with a trade.

Qatar National Bank (QNB) has picked up $2.38bn of bonds via private placements (PPs) in the last fortnight. But the size of the deals are such that they would have been better printed as public Eurobonds.

Qatar National Bank (QNB) has signed a $3.5bn loan with 21 international banks, with one of those also selling over $2.3bn of MTNs for the issuer, showing that banks’ jitters about supporting Qatari entities in the wake of the dispute between the sultanate and six other Arab states have partly been assuaged. Bianca Boorer and Virginia Furness report.

Israel Electric (IEC) shrugged off any concerns of contagion from the equity market rout earlier this week to print $1bn with no new issue premium on Wednesday.

Israel Electric revised pricing downwards on its 10.5 year bond issue on Wednesday as it looks to push out its curve.