Middle East Bonds

The Republic of Lebanon has picked three firms to run a Eurodollar benchmark, it’s first deal since it issued a four tranche bond last spring.

First Gulf Bank priced its $750m bond from a book of $1.7bn on Tuesday afternoon in London, offering a 5bp-10bp new issue premium.

First Gulf Bank (FGB), the third largest bank by assets in the UAE, is out with its first dollar bond since 2013. Leads talked the five year bond at 100bp-105bp over mid-swaps on Tuesday morning.

Turkey’s treasury department plans to issue TL1.8bn ($732.6m) of sukuk on Tuesday.

Iranian firms are still hoping for an end to crippling financial sanctions later this year and launching new business ventures in preparation. The latest is Kardan Investment Bank, which launched three new funds this week as part of an effort to modernise Iranian asset management.

Emirates NBD priced the longest Kangaroo bond from a Gulf bank on Wednesday. The bank is keen to establish its presence in the Aussie dollar market and paid a 10bp new issue premium to ensure a good secondary performance, according to bankers.

US investors’ scepticism towards sukuk debt is weighing on the Islamic finance market, practitioners lamented at Euromoney’s Islamic Finance and Investment conference in London this week.

Emirates NBD priced the longest Kangaroo bond from a Gulf bank on Wednesday. The bank is keen to establish its presence in the Aussie dollar market and paid a 10bp new issue premium to ensure a good secondary performance, according to bankers.

Islamic finance practitioners grappled with the question of how to open the US market to sukuk issuance and Islamic finance during a panel discussion at Euromoney’s Islamic Finance and Investment conference in London this week.

A spate of downgrades in the Middle East by Standard & Poor’s has been shrugged off by the market with bankers blaming the small sell-off in Kingdom of Bahrain’s bonds on underlying rate movements. They added that investors were more focused on the positive movement in oil prices than the much anticipated downgrade.

Emirates NBD is on track to price the longest Kangaroo bond from a Gulf bank and is marketing a seven year at 225bp over mid-swaps. The bank is keen to establish its presence in the Aussie dollar market, according to bankers.

The Bahrain based International Islamic Financial Market (IIFM) unveiled a new master collateralised murabaha agreement (MCMA) at a workshop in London this week. The framework is designed to offer Islamic entities a standard structure for raising low cost funding using idle Shariah compliant assets as collateral.