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KHALEEJ TIMES, Wednesday, Apr 7, 2021 | Shaaban 24, 1442

IsDB lists $2.5 billion sukuk on Nasdaq Dubai

Emirates: Nasdaq Dubai, the region’s international financial exchange, announced on Monday the listing of $2.5 billion sustainability sukuk by the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), boosting the total value of Islamic bond listings in Dubai to $77.8 billion.

The issuance of the Islamic bond is the biggest dollar listing to date of IsDB, the multilateral lender which finances development across its 57 member countries, Nasdaq Dubai said.

Jeddah-based IsDB has been an issuer of bonds. Last year, it made two listings, one was a $2 billion sukuk priced at a profit rate of 1.809 per cent and the other, a $1.5 billion bond to support Covid-19 relief efforts.

The five-year $2.5 billion Trust Certificates were priced at par with a profit rate of 1.262 per cent, payable on a semi-annual basis. Proceeds of the sukuk will be allocated to finance and refinance green and social development projects that are eligible under IsDB Sustainable Finance Framework.

The first of IsDB’s current sukuk listings on Nasdaq Dubai was a $1 billion instrument that was listed in 2015.

“This is the second AAA-rated Sukuk issuance under the sustainable finance framework of IsDB and is the bank’s biggest Us dollar public issuance to date,” Nasdaq Dubai said.

“With this latest addition, the total value of IsDB Sukuk listed on Nasdaq Dubai is $17.14 billion through 12 tranches,” Nasdaq said.

IsDB’s latest sukuk listing raises the total value of sukuk listed in Dubai to $77.8 billion, making the emirate one of the largest Islamic bond listing centres in the world by value. In 2020, dollar denominated debt listings, including conventional bonds, reached a total value of $91.1 billion in Dubai.

Dubai Islamic Bank is the highest UAE-based Sukuk issuer by value on Nasdaq Dubai with a total of $7.3 billion, including its latest $1 billion listing in November 2020. The debt issuance was DIB’s first post the completion of its integration with Noor Bank.

Dubai’s largest lender Emirates NBD is the top financial services bond issuer on Nasdaq Dubai with six listings valued at $4.35 billion.

In 2020 alone, the value of debt listings on Nasdaq Dubai reached a record annual high of $19.15 billion, up 8.0 per cent from the previous record of $17.7 billion over 2019.

Global sukuk issuance reached $130.5 billion in the first nine months of 2020, up 2.5 per cent from $127.3 billion in the same period of 2019, according to Refinitiv.

The State of the Global Islamic Economy Report 2020/2021 estimates that the value of all Islamic finance assets will increase by 28 per cent from $2.88 trillion in 2019 to $3.69 trillion by 2024.

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