INDONESIA - BANKING - Muamalat : Boubyan to sell part of its stake

blogs.mubashir.info - Boubyan Bank to sell part of its stake: Boubyan Bank has signed a contract to sell part of its ~25% stake in Bank Muamalat Indonesia for KWD9.6mn. The bank expects to gain KWD5.7mn from this sale, which it plans to use to create additional allocations and to strengthen its financial position. (Zawya) (source)

WORLD - BANKING - Islamic finance industry grew by 24.4% & global Sukuk issuance increased by more than 60% in 2011

www.zawya.com - NCB Sponsors and Partakes in Harvard's Islamic Finance ForumThe National Commercial Bank has recently participated in the Islamic Finance Forum organized by Harvard University in the United States of America. The forum is a renowned annual event that brings together top scholars, researchers and analysts, with economists and industry leaders in Islamic Finance from around the world.
Held in its tenth session this year, the forum's agenda was focused on discussing the role of Islamic finance in the global economic development, shedding light on the latest challenges facing the growth of the industry and defining the competitiveness and opportunities inherent in Islamic finance as a potential alternative for the conventional financial system.  (source)

SINGAPORE - OPINION - Loss-sharing is not sine qua non for Islamic finance

www.zawya.com - There remains a misconception amongst the masses that Islamic finance is essentially a system that shares the profit or the loss. In fact this is not the reality. Islamic finance involves different modes, out of which a few are profit sharing and/or profit and loss sharing. There are many other modes, where the question of sharing profit or bearing loss does not arise.

Even these, however, are rich in their respective virtues. Each of the modes of Islamic finance has got its own distinct characteristics in respect of modus operandi and principles. So whenever there is a contract (between two or more parties) under Islamic finance, none can insist on any party sharing profit or bearing loss unless the specific mode itself qualifies for such a provision. It is the mode of agreement that determines whether the contract can stipulate the provision of profit and loss sharing or not. (source)

WORLD - CAPITAL MARKETS - USD 85 billion sukuk issued in 2011

www.zawya.com - By Adnan Halawi, Team Leader – Fixed Income, Zawya

 

USD85bn of sukuk were sold in 2011, an increase of 62% from 2010, writes Adnan Halawi, Zawya's Fixed Income Analyst, who presents a sukuk timeline for 2011 and pipeline for 2012.
GLOBAL SUKUK REVIEW: 2011

USD 84.4 billion of sukuk were issued in 2011 across the world, an increase of 62% from the USD 52 billion issued in 2010. This made the year the best on record in terms of sukuk issuance according to data compiled by Zawya's Sukuk Monitor.

Malaysia continued to constitute the main sukuk market worldwide, followed by the GCC, while sovereign issuers were the main drivers of the growth. The global sukuk market now stands at USD 182 billion. (source)

SOUTH KOREA - BANKING - QIB inks deal with Korean bank

Doha : Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB), the largest Islamic bank in Qatar and one of the leading Islamic banks in the world, yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Export-Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM), reflecting the growing trade and investment flows between Qatar and South Korea.

The MoU was signed on Tuesday Abdullatif bin Abdulla Al Mahmoud, Managing Director,QIB and Ki-Sub Nam, Executive Director and Board Member, the Export-Import Bank of Korea. The signing ceremony was attended by senior QIB executives and KEXIM delegation. (source)

INDONESIA - TAKAFUL - Takaful Insurance Market in Saudi Arabia to reach around USD 7.7 billion in 2012 - Indonesia grows 67 %

KSA to be the First Worldwide with a Market Size of USD 25 billion in 2015. The size of the global Takaful insurance market is of around USD 12 billion for the current year, and it is expected to reach around USD 25 billion within 2015. Furthermore, 49% of the total insurance premiums will be in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, while the size of Takaful insurance market will reach around 1% of the global insurance market, with the possibility of development by 20% annually.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is at the top of the world in terms of the growth of Takaful market, where the size of Takaful insurance market is expected to reach USD 7.7 billion by the end of 2012, after reaching nearly USD 5 billion in the first quarter of this year, according to recently published reports. (source)

WORLD - CAPITAL MARKETS - The rise of Wakalah

By Adnan Halawi, Team Leader – Fixed Income, Zawya

 

05 September 2011
Global Sukuk Review: August 2011
Despite the summer holidays accompanied by the month of Ramadan, the Islamic bonds market witnessed noticeable activity in August 2011. There were some launches as well as announcements that some much-delayed and long-awaited sukuk would finally be issued, as early as September or in the fourth quarter of the year. A total of USD6 billion of sukuk were sold in August, according to the Zawya Sukuk Monitor, compared to USD4.7 issued in the same period of 2010. (source)

MALAYSIA - CAPITAL MARKETS - Sarawak Sukuk Success

Sarawak Energy, the state-owned electricity group, has announced its maiden Sukuk Musharakah program for RM15bn ($4.9bn), the largest single debt program ever established by a Malaysian utility company. 

Proceeds are to be used for Capex and refinancing of existing debts. As a key facilitator of the state and federal governments' plans to tap Sarawak's energy resources via the development of the Sarawak corridor of Renewable Energy, SEB's Sukuk take-up will ensure the success of the energy corridor. (source)

KOREA - Islamic finance to be filibustered out of Korea

There does not look like there's much hope for Islamic finance breaking through in South Korea anytime soon, according to Min Kyung Kim senior manager of the Korean Deposit Insurance Corporation. (source)

CAPITAL MARKETS - AmIslamic launches ASEAN Equity fund - focus also Indonesia

Hot on the heels of launching its Asia-Pacific fund last month, AmIslamic Funds Management, the Shari'ah-compliant investment subsidiary of Malaysia's AmBank Group, has launched the AmASEAN Equity fund. 

The new fund will target medium- to long-term capital growth by investing in a portfolio of equities in the ASEAN markets with specific focus on the markets of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand, known as the ASEAN 5. (source)

SINGAPORE - Islamic Finance Moves Towards a New Era of Growing Global Connectivity

The 2nd Annual World Islamic Banking Conference: Asia Summit to gather more than 450 industry leaders for discussions on enhancing cross-border connectivity and driving growth of significant international transactions in Islamic finance

 Singapore - More than 450 key players and thought leaders in the global and regional Islamic finance industry will be gathering on the 8^th and 9^th of June 2011 in Singapore for the 2^nd Annual World Islamic Banking Conference: Asia Summit, which is convened with the support of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. (source)

CAPITAL MARKETS - Global Sukuk Markets - April in Review

Malaysia continued to be the most active market with both sovereign and corporate deals closed and launched in April.  The largest issue from Malaysia was the third tranche in 2011 of the Government Investment Issue worth MYR3.5 billion (USD1.16 billion). Telekom Malaysia launched an MYR2 billion sukuk program and sold its first tranche of MYR150 million. The bulk of the issue will be used for TM's high-speed broadband project. The latter is in line with the government's 10th Malaysia Plan 2011-2015 which identified broadband as a key economic enabler with the government targeting a 75% penetration rate by 2015 - up 135% from 2010. 

The Zawya Sukuk Monitor shows quite a number of Malaysian corporate sukuk in the pipeline, including KPJ Healthcare and Westports Malaysia.

Neighboring Indonesia, which is said to plan a gross bond issuance of over IDR200 trillion (USD23 billion) this year to help plug its budget deficit, issued a good amount of sukuk as well and announced its intention to visit the global market by issuing a USD1 billion sukuk in the second half of the year. (full story)

FINANCE - Indonesia: (Islamic) Financing opportunities

The Islamic financial sector in Indonesia is hoping a mix of state-backed infrastructure projects and regulatory reforms will help the country's sharia-compliant lenders to continue their rapid expansion, allowing the industry to realise its full potential and to come out of the shadows of other regional banking powers.


Indonesia was a relative late-comer to the Islamic finance sector, only ratifying legislation to clear the way for sharia-compliant services a quarter of a century after Malaysia had opened the door to Islamic banking and associated activities. (full story)