An unnamed
government new to Islamic finance is scheduled for its first sukuk issue before
the end of March, Citigroup’s director of global Islamic banking said in Beirut
today.
Declining
to provide further details, Dubai based Hulusi Horozoglu said: “The size of the
issue is not decided yet.”
Citigroup
is working on several issues from the Middle East and new markets which should
be carried out by the end of the first quarter of 2011, he said. The bank
should lead a number of sales of Islamic debt, or sukuk, from Turkey next year,
Horozoglu said.
The new
Turkish issues will probably be bigger than the $100 million sold by Kuveyt
Turk Katilim Bankasi AS, a bank, in August, he said.
Sales of
sukuk fell 29 percent to $13.5 billion as of November 4 after reaching a record
$31 billion in 2007 before the collapse of the credit markets drove investors
away from all but the safest government securities, according to data compiled
by Bloomberg.
Islamic
law, or Shariah, bars investment in industries such as gambling and alcohol,
while sukuk are typically backed by assets such as real estate.
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