Middle East Bonds

The Islamic Development Bank will price a $1bn sukuk on Thursday following roadshows, an IsDB official said.

The Central Bank of Bahrain has issued BD36m ($93.7m) of three month sukuk al-salam, with the sale oversubscribed by 325%.

Despite Egypt’s rejection of political Islam last year, Islamic banking in the country is set to accelerate, say bankers. Seizing the opportunity to help those most affected by Egypt’s struggling economy will bring a doubling of Islamic banking assets over the next two years, they predict.

The likelihood of Western companies issuing sukuk this year is growing, say bankers, as Islamic investors’ perceptions of Western issuers improves, more conventional asset managers allocate to sukuk, and European sovereigns prepare to issue door-opening deals.

The likelihood of Western companies issuing sukuk this year is growing, say bankers, as Islamic investors’ perceptions of Western issuers improves, more conventional asset managers allocate to sukuk, and European sovereigns prepare to issue door-opening deals.

In 2014, emerging market bankers will be chasing after bigger mandates, but fewer of them if this year’s numbers are anything to go by. The average size of an emerging market bond in the first weeks of this year has leapt skywards compared to previous years while the number of deals priced has plummeted, according to Dealogic data. But DCM officials say they see little real change in the way deals are pitched or sold as a result of that new strategy.

Tich Mabikacheche has left Barclays EM DCM team after 2.5 years as an analyst on that desk.

Bahrain’s Arab Banking Corporation has shaken up its senior management, hiring Ray Ferguson, chief executive officer at Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore), to a newly created position as group chief banking officer.

General Electric, the only western blue chip corporate to date to have issued an international sukuk, has not ruled out a return to the Islamic market when its deal matures this year.

Russian issuers have finally returned to the market this year, with both Sberbank and Russian Agricultural Bank printing dollar bonds this week. RAB's $500m deal is a tap of its outstanding $800m 2018s, while Sberbank's note is a $1bn 10 year non call five tier two bond, printed under the Central Bank of Russia’s clarified writedown language for Basel III compliant debt.

Saudi Arabia’s National Commercial Bank priced SR5bn ($1.3bn) of tier two sukuk on Wednesday – the largest ever issue of Islamic paper by a Saudi bank.

The Islamic Development Bank will hit the road on Sunday as it lines up a dollar benchmark sukuk of as much as $1bn. The deal will be a welcome — if tightly priced — issue for UK Islamic banks, given its status as the only triple-A rated sukuk issuer that qualifies for liquidity buffers under Bank of England rules.