Nakheel may try to tender its sukuk, interview with Anouar Hassoune, opinion piece by Rushdi Siddiqui

Nakheel may make a tender offer for its $3.52 billion sukuk that comes due in December at a discount. However, many investors are likely to reject the tender offer in the hope of receiving full repayment at maturity, in part because Nakheel may receive government support from the Dubai government if it is unable to make payment on its own, as Phillip Lotter, a vice president at Moody's Investors Services said June 10. The prices in the secondary market fell to 63.5 cents on the dollar before rebounding to 87 cents yesterday. I wrote a summary of the Nakheel sukuk on my Zawya blog back in May.

Emirates Business 24/7 has a great interview with Anouar Hassoune, the Vice President and Senior Credit Officer at Moody's Investors Service about the Islamic finance, in particular, the resiliency of the industry at a time when several stand-alone Islamic investment banks have defaulted on their obligations.

Rushdi Siddiqui, head of Islamic finance for Thomson Reuters has an opinion piece saying that Islamic financial institutions should undergo stress tests like the major banks in the U.S. did earlier this year to increase confidence in the industry.

European banks, including a German bank but no French banks, have expressed interest in financing and running the $3 billion IPO planned for Istikhlaf, the planned $10 billion mega-Islamic bank. Sheikh Saleh Kamel and Adnan Yousef who have been the driving force for the bank's launch are not going to take management roles in the banks following the IPO.

Other News

• The Islamic Development Bank is planning to issue the first $500 million sukuk over the next few weeks as part of its planned 5-year, $6 billion sukuk offering.
  
• Indonesia's exchange-backed bond pricing agency will begin publishing daily prices of bonds and sukuk to facilitate greater liquidity in the secondary markets and help issuers price new issues.
  
• The Dubai government is providing AED 5 billion ($1.36 billion) in financing to merge two banks together into the Emirates Development Bank. However, despite the expectation that Amlak and Tamweel, the troubled Islamic mortgage lenders, would be included in the new entity they were not part of the announced plan.
  
• The flood of new sovereign sukuk issues continues as the Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority (RAKIA) is planning to issue a $500 million sukuk in July.
  
• A Bahraini Islamic investment bank is financing construction of a $50 million mall in the country.
  
• Gulf news has two articles about Islamic banking and in particular the use of Islamic financial institutions by non-Muslims in the Gulf.