GCC

The bond pipeline in CEEMEA is light with only well flagged borrowers opening books in a week that is peppered with data points and political risk events.

Orders of over $1.5bn enabled Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power to squeeze down guidance for its amortising note on Wednesday.

Despite a public holiday on Monday and the second round of the French presidential election due this Sunday, the IPO market is vibrant, with two more names joining the pre-summer pipeline so far this week.

New deals from the Middle East are beginning to flow. Saudi Arabia's International Company for Water and Power Projects (ACWA Power) opened books on a conventional amortising note on Tuesday, as Saudi Electricity Co (Seco) and Oman Electricity Transmission line up sukuk trades.

Three banks have joined the syndication of a loan to Oman's Bank Sohar of $250m, which Bank ABC has been mandated to co-ordinate.

Saudi Arabian water company ACWA has resurrected its debut deal, thanks to improved market conditions after the trade, which was first announced in November, was delayed. The return of the deal sees Citi bumped up to join Jefferies on the top line.

Evercore plans to open a Dubai office early in the second quarter of this year, following its hire of Waleed El-Amir, former group funding head at UniCredit, as senior adviser for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey.

Bank ABC has successfully closed a $213m syndicated loan to Albaraka Türk Bank and launched another two new deals on Wednesday.

Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) has secured commitments for a $700m export credit facility to finance its Line 6 expansion project.

China’s economy grows faster than expected in the first quarter of 2017, the head of State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe) meets with the deputy governor of the World Bank, and Citic says demand for cross-border financing activity is on the rise.

Saudi Arabia’s $9bn sukuk was, for the second time, a staggering market debut from the sovereign. But size came at a price and the issuer paid up over its conventional curve, writes Virginia Furness.

Mubadala raised $1.5bn in the bond market on Tuesday with a dual tranche seven and 12 year deal, the deal was well subscribed but didn’t come as tight to the sovereign as Mubadala’s previous issue.