Saudi Arabia chooses hybrid structure for debut dollar sukuk

April 7, 2017

Jeddah, Apr 7: Saudi Arabia has chosen a hybrid structure for its debut international sukuk, the prospectus for the offer showed, a format widely used in the Saudi local debt market, but not the most popular for sovereign issues.

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The Islamic bond, expected to go up to $10 billion, will be the country’s second international debt sale after a $17.5 billion conventional bond in October last year. That bond issue, the largest ever sold across emerging markets, was part of an effort to diversify Saudi Arabia’s funding sources to plug a budget deficit caused by lower oil prices.

Saudi Arabia will soon start meeting fixed income investors for the sukuk, a dual-tranche Islamic bond with five- and 10-year maturities.

An amount equal to 51 percent of the bond proceeds will be used in a mudaraba agreement, a form of Islamic investment management partnership. The remaining 49 percent of the proceeds will be used under a murabaha facility by the trustee, a Cayman Islands-incorporated company called KSA Sukuk Limited, to purchase Shariah-compliant commodities, the prospectus said.

Such a hybrid structure, which replicates the riyal-denominated sukuk offer launched by oil giant Saudi Aramco earlier this month, is common in the Saudi local currency debt market. A different lease-based (ijara) sukuk structure has been the most commonly used by countries raising money via international debt issuances.

A hybrid structure might be too complex for some international investors to the point of possibly testing their appetite for the deal, bankers told Reuters last week.

Citigroup, HSBC and JP Morgan are the global coordinators mandated to arrange investor meetings ahead of the sukuk offering. They are joined by BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and NCB Capital as lead managers and bookrunners.

In a separate development, sources said Saudi Aramco had raised SR11.25 billion ($3 billion) in its debut sukuk issuance.

The Islamic bond, part of a program to raise SR37.5 billion, is the oil giant’s first fundraising exercise aimed at diversifying revenues that have been hit by low global oil prices.

The floating rate local currency sukuk has a seven-year maturity and offers 25 basis points over the six-month Saudi Arabian Interbank Offered Rate (SAIBOR).

Saudi Aramco’s debut deal is likely to be followed soon, possibly as early as next week, by the dollar-denominated Saudi sovereign sukuk.

Saudi Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Saudi Aramco started collecting orders for its debut issuance on March 27, a document issued by banks leading the deal showed.

The order books for the transaction should have closed on April 9, according to the original timeline. But bookbuilding was extended by a day because some accounts needed extra time to obtain internal approvals.

Alinma Investment, HSBC Saudi Arabia, NCB Capital and Riyad Capital were the coordinators of the Aramco deal, joined by GIB Capital, Samba Capital and Saudi Fransi Capital in dealer roles.

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News Network
April 27,2024

The spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces has said it has carried out new operations against American and British targets in retaliation for their aggression on the country.

Brigadier General Yahya Saree said on Friday that Yemen’s naval forces struck a British oil tanker in the Red Sea with missiles.

Saree also said the military also shot down an American MQ-9 drone in Sa’ada province.

He added that the new operations were also a show of solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, amid the Israeli genocide there. 

“The Yemeni Armed Forces salute all the people of Yemen for their faithful response to the call of the fighter leader Sayyed Abdulmalik Badr El-Din Al-Houthi, may Allah protect him, in their unprecedented large-scale interaction in support of our oppressed brothers in the Gaza Strip, affirming support for the Armed Forces in their military operations against the ‘Israeli’ enemy and against the American-British aggression supporting it in the Red and Arabian Seas and the Indian Ocean,” Saree said.

He stressed that the Yemeni armed forces will continue operations in the Red and Arabian Seas as well as the Indian Ocean until the Western-backed Israeli genocide comes to a halt.

Since the start of the brutal campaign in Gaza, the regime has killed more than 34,300 Palestinians and injured over 77,000 others. It has cut off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

The Yemeni Armed Forces have been targeting Israeli vessels or those “associated” with the occupying regime in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea since October 7, 2023.

The regime ignited its bloody war machine in the besieged Palestinian territory on that October day in response to Operation Al-Aqsa Storm conducted by the resistance movement Hamas.

The maritime attacks have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.

Tankers are instead adding thousands of miles to international shipping routes by sailing around the continent of Africa rather than going through the Suez Canal.

The pro-Palestine maritime campaign has also prompted airstrikes by the US and its allies on Yemen – in violation of the Yemeni sovereignty and international law.

In consequence, Yemen’s armed forces have declared US and British vessels as legitimate targets.

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News Network
April 23,2024

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The genocidal Israeli war on the Gaza Strip has entered its 200th day, with occupation forces killing more Palestinians in defiance of widespread international outcry to end the carnage.

The aggression marked its 200th day on Tuesday with no end in sight to the Israeli war that has so far killed a shocking number of Palestinians and led to a humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory.

The Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli forces have committed three "massacres" over the past 24 hours, killing at least 32 Palestinians and wounding 59 others.

The numbers, it added, bring the Palestinian death toll to more than 34,183, with at least 77,143 injured and an estimated 7,000 missing and presumed dead since early October.

More than 14,500 children and 9,500 women are among those killed, making up over 70 percent of the victims, according to health officials.

Israel waged its brutal US-backed war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Israel has been carrying out war crimes in Gaza by deliberately starving people and forcing their evacuation, as well as targeting hospitals and schools sheltering displaced Palestinians.

Despite all these atrocities, the regime has failed to achieve its declared objectives of “destroying Hamas” and finding Israeli captives held in Gaza.

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News Network
April 22,2024

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Some 62,000 Israeli settlers have fled areas in the northern sector of the 1948 Israeli-occupied lands amid fear of strikes by Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement in retaliation for the bloody onslaught on Gaza, latest reports have revealed.

Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television news channel, citing Israeli media outlets, reported on Sunday evening that the number of settlers that have evacuated the area as a result of Hezbollah’s operations now stands at a staggering 62,000.

The report noted that 30,000 of the settlers have evacuated northern occupied Palestine on their own as fears are mounting among the residents that Hezbollah fighters continue to carry out daily operations with no signs that they are deterred by any action the Israeli army is taking.

Israeli media outlets further noted that 40% of the evacuees are considering no return to the region.

Moreover, 38% of those who voluntarily left the area, no longer intend to return to their previous places of residence in the northern occupied territories.

This comes as Hezbollah targeted a facility housing Israeli soldiers in the Shomera settlement earlier on Sunday with a barrage of rockets.

The Lebanese resistance group also struck surveillance devices newly installed around the Dovev military barracks, completely destroying the hardware.

Hezbollah said in a statement that it attacked the deployment positions of Israeli soldiers south of the Jal al-Alam site, using heavy-caliber Burkan (Volcano) missiles.

In another statement, the resistance group announced that its fighters struck surveillance equipment at the Misgav Am military site, which Israeli forces had lately re-positioned.

Surveillance equipment at the al-Malkiya base was also targeted and destroyed, it said, adding that the operation was carried out with a salvo of rockets.

The Israeli regime has repeatedly attacked southern Lebanon since October 7, when it launched a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed at least 34,097 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

In retaliation, Hezbollah has launched near-daily rocket attacks on Israeli positions.

At least 349 people have been killed on the Lebanese border, including 68 civilians.

Hezbollah has already fought off two Israeli wars against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006. The resistance forced the regime to retreat in both conflicts.

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