Middle East Bonds

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.

Panda bond issuance has so far been dominated by overseas-incorporated Chinese names. That bolsters volumes, but it does little to help the market fulfil its role of boosting RMB internationalisation. Policymakers have the chance to fix it — but only if they are bold enough to let markets play a bigger role.

The Institute of International Finance (IIF) on Monday reported $4bn of outflows from emerging market bond funds since January 30, but even in the face of a global equity sell-off, the asset class has been largely resilient — for now.

Two days after locking in a $1bn private placement, Qatar National Bank has sold a second two year floating rate note, this time for $1.38bn.

Qatar National Bank has added to a busy run of funding with a $1bn two year private placement that it sold to a single investor, according to sources. The region's banks have tapped the Islamic and Taiwanese markets and issued in Aussie dollars.

Qatar National Bank has added to its run of funding with a $1bn two year private placement, according to sources.