GCC

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia printed its $11bn bond on Tuesday, which several bankers and investors thought had been timed to maximise disruption of Qatar’s return to market, which is also expected this week. But leads said the modest size taken by Saudi from a $50bn book showed that there was no intention of throwing the capital markets into disarray.

Seven new banks have joined Stanbic Kenya's loan, which will be signed on Thursday, leading to a heavy oversubscription, but the borrower declined to take any more money than the $100m it had set out to raise.

Saudi and Qatar look to be printing jumbo bonds this week, but the timing of both in the same few days after so many months of waiting is prompting chatter about which sovereign has caused the traffic jam and whether political machinations are behind it.

The Commercial Bank of Qatar has signed a $250m borrowing with seven banks, in a deal syndicated in the Asian loan market.

Mannai Corp, a Qatari conglomerate, looks set to bring the first public bond from the country since the Gulf diplomatic crisis erupted last summer.

Dubai’s GEMS Education has closed the syndication of a $1.25bn loan with another five banks joining its deal.

Mannai Corporation looks set to bring the first public bond from Qatar since the Gulf diplomatic crisis erupted last summer.

State-owned holding company Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD) has successfully refinanced a loan maturing in June with a club deal.

The Kingdom of Bahrain was set to print a $1bn 7.5 year sukuk on Wednesday evening from a book of $2.2bn, with leads having managed to crunch the coupon to 6.875%. Rivals had called the guidance for the note “a new record” high for a new issue premium, but leads said the illiquidity of the sukuk curve rendered the concept of new issue premium almost meaningless.

The Kingdom of Bahrain has squashed its plans to issue conventional bonds but is forging ahead with its long seven year sukuk, putting out initial price guidance for the deal.

Saudi Arabia has had to scale back banks grappling to get on its $16bn loan, which will be used to refinance a $10bn loan taken out in 2016.

Syndicates away from the Kingdom of Bahrain's new issue are saying that a huge widening in the sovereign’s outstanding bonds is indicative that investors are “not happy” to see the new paper arriving, though those on the deal are simply blaming market volatility.