BNY Mellon has been appointed to act as delegate, principal paying agent, registrar and transfer agent for a new sukuk launched by the Dubai International Financial Centre Investments (DIFCI) LLC.
The ten-year sukuk is priced at $700 million, and will pay a 4.3 percent profit rate per annum.
Joint lead managers on the issuance are Dubai Islamic Bank PJSC, Emirates NBD Capital, Noor Bank PJSC and Standard Chartered Bank. The sukuk has been assigned a BBB- credit rating by Standard & Poor’s.
Essa Abdulfattah Kazim, governor of DIFC, said: "This is DIFC's first debt issuance since 2007 and is testament to the improved credit fundamentals of both the company and Dubai.”
“DIFC has played an important role in supporting the development of Islamic finance by undertaking a sole listing of the sukuk on NASDAQ Dubai."
In 2014 so far, the volume of sukuk issuance in the Gulf region has surpassed $20 billion, a 27 percent increase on the same period in 2013.
"We expect the Gulf's Islamic finance industry to maintain its rapid growth," said Dean Fletcher, CEO of corporate trust in the EMEA region for BNY Mellon.
"This expansion will be driven by ambitious projects in the region, such as the 2020 World Expo trade convention in Dubai, which will stimulate more demand for exhibition centres, transport networks and hotels. We are also seeing strong investor demand; the DIFCI sukuk was over four times oversubscribed and priced at 185 basis points above the US dollar mid-swaps rate."
