Qatar

Qatar National Bank has secured $630m with a structured Formosa bond to prove it is still able to access funding despite the sensitives surrounding the Qatar crisis.

London’s emerging market bankers are growing increasingly concerned about whether the Qatari central bank will go ahead with encouraging the country’s lenders into international bond markets, as tensions between the country and its Gulf neighbours continue. Michael Turner reports.

London’s emerging market bankers are growing increasingly concerned with how to deal with expectations that the Qatari central bank will encourage its lenders into international bond markets, as tensions between the country and its Gulf neighbours continue.

The continued severance of diplomatic ties between Qatar and its neighbours is a growing risk to the country’s banks’ capital raising efforts, which have the heaviest reliance on overseas funding in the Gulf.

Topaz Marine was marketing the first Gulf Co-operation Council-domiciled (GCC) credit since May on Wednesday morning, but the credit is no barometer for appetite Gulf names in the wake of the Qatar crisis, said investors.

With a few weeks to go before asset managers begin their annual pilgrimage to the globe's beachfronts, the last few borrowers are slipping into the primary market before liquidity evaporates in the summer heat. Nostrum’s trade this week provided evidence of the slowdown in demand for risker credits.

Qatari banks have been involved in several syndicated loans in the past month, despite the stand-off between the nation and six other Middle Eastern states.

CEEMEA primary issuance will be clustered around the last few days of the week as Liquid Telecom is yet to announce price guidance on its $600m five non-call three year trade.

Foreign ministers from across the Gulf meet in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss the continued tensions with Qatar, as bank analysts predicted the Saudi Arabia-led coalition against Qatar will reject the country’s response to its demands.

Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting which began on May 26, has caused delays to loan deals that were expected to close this week in the Middle East, according to bankers in the region.

As concerns mount over the diplomatic stand-off between six Gulf states and Qatar, GlobalCapital investigated the immediate impact on the loan market in the region as well as its likely consequences and discovered a mixed picture.

Diplomatic tension in the Gulf between Qatar and Saudi Arabia and others has rattled the financial markets. But as the political trouble escalates, what that spells for the region’s capital markets is far from clear, write Bianca Boorer, Virgina Furness and Sharon Kimathi.