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Issue 856 - 27 June 2009

The sukuk list

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List detailing sukuk transactions in 2009

Kuwait | Saudi Arabia | Bahrain | United Arab Emirates (UAE) | Qatar | Lebanon
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With conventional bank funding drying up, sovereign and corporate issuers are tapping the Islamic bond market to fund expansion. Bahrain has just launched an issue that was eight times over-subscribed. But in the longer term, the sukuk industry’s credibility will depend on improving market transparency

Bahrain
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The global credit crisis has posed questions over project and trade financing capacity, to which Islamic finance is supplying answers.

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Limited investment options have exposed takaful operators to the global economic downturn. But many providers are optimistic, seeing huge potential in a still largely untapped global market.

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An Islamic hedge fund appears to be a contradiction in terms. Conventional hedge funds are fundamentally associated with principles abhorred by sharia scholars, such as short selling or speculation. But after several years of hand wringing by sharia boards over what is halal (allowed) or haram (forbidden), under sharia law, real alternative investment vehicles claiming to be sharia-compliant are edging into the market

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Moody’s Investors Service on 9 June applied a ‘negative’ ratings outlook to Kuwait’s Aa2 sovereign ratings – a downgrade from the previous ‘stable’ – adding to investor discomfort during a period when Kuwait-based financial institutions have come under intense scrutiny.

Kuwait
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Sheikh Hasher Al-Maktoum’s alleged involvement in corrupt business dealings will test Dubai’s courts. With real estate scandals blighting Dubai’s image, investors will be looking to the judiciary to restore confidence.

United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Issue 855 - 13 June 2009

Who is Maan Al-Sanea?

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Maan Abdelwahed Abdelmajid Al-Sanea was relatively little known outside the region until he bought a high-profile stake in HSBC in 2007 (GSN 804/10, 803/9). Al-Sanea, in his mid-50s, holds Kuwaiti and Saudi nationality. According to a Kuwaiti source, he grew up in Shamiya, a middle class suburb of Kuwait City. But his maternal family is the Al-Gosaibi, from Hofuf in eastern Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia
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Mubadala Development Corporation (MDC) lost Dh11.8bn ($3.23bn) in 2008, which its first ever annual report puts down to some very substantial impairment charges related to investments made during the boom years prior to the collapse in oil prices and the realisation that Abu Dhabi was not immune to the global economic downturn.

United Arab Emirates (UAE)
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As the Saudi solvency crisis has unfolded market speculation has focused on any business relationship between the Al-Gosaibi and Al-Sanea companies, in an attempt to explain why two so seemingly successful family businesses have fallen into difficulty.

Saudi Arabia
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ICs – whose numbers almost doubled to 99 in 2005-08 – have on- and off-balance sheet assets equivalent to more than 100% of the banking system’s assets. This makes the ICs “systemically important” – posing a systemic risk if their solvency deteriorated further.

Kuwait
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Ratings downgrades for major Saudi investors, a potential systemic crisis in Kuwait where investment companies are in freefall, fraud charges against well-connected Dubai developers and a marked lack of performance by Abu Dhabi’s investment flagship.

United Arab Emirates (UAE) | Kuwait | Saudi Arabia
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The authorities remain confident that it’s all just a blip, but with some previously well-regarded companies defaulting on payments, the impact of the credit crunch is being felt in Saudi Arabia. The shock downgrading or removal of Al-Gosaibi and Maan Al-Sanea’s ratings has rattled bankers and investors across the region.

Saudi Arabia
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Kuwait’s largest telecoms operator has gained a majority stake in the Palestine Telecommunication Company (Paltel) as part of an expansion plan. Showing the depressed mood in the Gulf, even large family businesses are looking away from their traditional home markets. International law firm Trowers & Hamlins has advised the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland on the development and financing of a large scale specialist healthcare project in Muharraq.

Kuwait | Bahrain
Issue 854 - 30 May 2009

Project market clues to recovery

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In the project finance market, signals have been mixed. On the one hand, the Saudi market has been through a dour time, not least in its cancellation of the $5.5bn-$6bn Ras Al-Zour independent water and power project (IWPP) as a private sector development after the original bid winner, Malaysia’s Malakoff, failed to come up with financing and decided to withdraw.

Kuwait | Saudi Arabia | Bahrain