Middle East Bonds

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.

Sukuk is one of the fastest growing markets in the Islamic finance sector. In this second part of our Islamic Finance Basics series, we look at the underlying principles of sukuk, its development as an asset class and how it compares to conventional instruments.

The International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation (IILM) will auction its third $490m short term dollar sukuk next week.

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.

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.

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. This may be a function of sovereigns having so far dominated the market — especially in CEEMEA — but is a trend that could be the shape of things to come for the rest of the year.

In 2013, several CEEMEA issuers roadshowed, mandated or even released price talk for a new Eurobond before postponing the deal. EuroWeek Emerging Markets recaps the borrowers that may be waiting for a window, and finds out whether they are still looking or have embarked on another funding plan.