Middle East Loans

Qatar's Commercial Bank has signed a $166m loan from a group of Asian lenders, mostly Japanese, extending a trend of Middle Eastern borrowers heading east for cash.

Omani borrowers have lit up the loan market with deals this year but Bahrain — another country vulnerable to oil price shocks — has seen little deal flow. Two large dollar deals for Bahraini borrowers in recent weeks, however, have shown the country is back in the fray.

Oman Shipping Company is syndicating an underwritten loan, after other state-owned Oman firms PDO and Dhofar Power Company wrapped up deals in recent weeks.

Kuwait’s Equate bargained hard on the terms of its latest $5bn bridge loan refinancing, bankers said, and the syndicate for the latest loan shrunk as some lenders passed on the deal.

United Arab Bank’s has signed up four more banks to join the three initial leads on its latest $150m two year loan.

Commercial Bank of Dubai, like other Dubai credits, has swerved the increased borrowing costs inflicted on some of its Gulf peers with its latest loan.

Emirates NBD has signed a $1.7bn three year loan facility, increasing it from $1.25bn following a strong investor response.

Doha Bank has fully exercised an $80m greenshoe option on its Taiwan targeted syndicated loan, increasing its size to $180m.

National Bank of Abu Dhabi is betting big on India’s fast growing economy having opened a branch in Mumbai. While the purchase of Royal Bank of Scotland’s Indian foreign currency corporate loan book has given momentum to its business, the firm has bigger ambitions, NBAD’s chief executive officer for India told Shruti Chaturvedi.

Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) is leading a run of deals in the market from the sultanate, with the borrower said to be close to completing a loan of more than $3bn.

Abu Dhabi's Mubadala has tightened the margin on its $1.75bn three year refinancing, despite the price on the original loan already being “eye-wateringly low”, according to one banker.

Kuwaiti petrochemicals firm Equate is taking its time to refinance $6bn of loans, with bankers blaming the tight pricing and deal size for the slow progress of the self-arranged transaction.