Middle East

Emirates Sembcorp Water & Power revised guidance for a new issue downwards on Wednesday morning after taking orders of $2.3bn.

Saudi Aramco’s jumbo IPO is taxiing towards take off, though the timing and any co-listing locations along with Riyadh have yet to be revealed. London and New York’s exchanges are eager to host a co-listing, with Toronto, Hong Kong and Singapore also in the frame for what promises to be the biggest ever IPO, valuing the company at $2tr.

Oman Telecommunications is expected to sign a $2.2bn loan in the coming weeks to finance its acquisition of a 21.9% stake in Kuwaiti telecoms company Zain Group.

The IPO of Adnoc Distribution, the petrol stations business of Abu Dhabi’s state oil company, was covered at its base size, three working days into the bookbuild.

Emirates Sembcorp Water & Power has opened books on its $400m amortising note. Some market participants say the move signals the next phase of GCC fiscal rebalancing as governments look to offload fully operational infrastructure projects onto international investors, though others are sceptical that the trend will really take off.

The Republic of Turkey is planning to use yen to round off its funding for the year, and has named three leads to arrange the deal.

Emirates REIT, the world’s largest listed Sharia compliant real estate investment trust, has named leads for its debut sukuk.

Turkish banks Garanti and Finansbank have signed their last refinancing loans of the year, for $1.36bn and $780.05m, respectively.

Emaar Properties’ real estate development unit has sagged in the aftermarket after it priced its Dh4.8bn ($1.3bn) IPO last week, amid heightened geopolitical risk in the Middle East and a general weakness in the IPO market.

The dollar tranche of Ülker’s second loan of the year has been priced 20bp tighter than on its first loan of 2017, suggesting the market is swinging in Turkish borrowers’ favour as political noise in the country quietens down.

Shares in Migros Ticaret, one of the biggest supermarket chains in Turkey, fell 8.5% on Wednesday after BC Partners sold a 7.3% stake in the company in a block trade on Thursday night. The shares fell another 3.5% on Thursday.

Moelis & Company has challenged Wall Street’s ‘consensus thinking’ to build a global advisory powerhouse that’s become the poster child for the post-crisis independent sector, writes David Rothnie