Friday 15 October 2010

Sunland promises dividends

Sunland Group Ltd has reconfirmed its profit guidance, promising shareholders it would start paying dividends after they approved a third tranche of the property group's share buy-back program.

Managing director Sahba Abedian reassured shareholders meeting at Sunland's plush Palazzo Versace hotel on Queensland's Gold Coast that net profit in 2010-11 would be $20 million, despite increasingly challenging market conditions faced by its Dubai operations.

Strong pre-sales worth more than $216 million for six new projects to be released this year would underpin cash flow and ensure sufficient reserves for acquisitions and Sunland's third tranche of its share buy-back, he said.

Panmure's Qatari shareholder mulls stake sale - Telegraph

Lazard's appointment follows last month's announcement that rival stockbroker Evolution was considering a bid for Panmure Gordon, one of the City's oldest stockbrokers. A spokesman for Lazard declined to comment.

Evolution was forced by the Takeover Panel to admit that it was considering a bid for Panmure Gordon after reports of a possible offer sent shares in the stockbroker higher.

In a stock exchange announcement Evolution said "it was looking at a range of options to boost its fund management and securities businesses and that an offer for Panmure was one of them".

Moody's changes outlook on DEWA to positive from stable

Moody's Investors Service has changed the outlook to positive from stable for Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) including related entities (DEWA Funding Ltd. and its guaranteed debt instruments (US$1 billion notes due April 2015).

At the same time, Moody's has converted DEWA's issuer rating into a Ba2 corporate family rating (CFR) and assigned a probability of default rating (PDR) of Ba2, in line with the rating agency's practice for corporate issuers with non-investment-grade ratings.

FT.com - Qatari Diar to fund Chelsea Barracks project

Qatari Diar, the sovereign wealth developer, will fund the multibillion-pound development of the former Chelsea Barracks through its own cash as it uses the deep pockets of its oil-rich sponsor to create an upmarket London neighbourhood.

Qatari Diar, backed by the Qatari Investment Authority, has bought out the loan of more than £1bn that had been used to acquire the 12.8 acre site for a record-breaking price. The Islamic financing was the largest its kind for the UK.

Stephen Barter, chief executive of Qatari Diar, said that the company had drawn a line under the previous structure, which was partly owned by the Candy brothers’ CPC Group.

U.S. Export-Import Bank Says Persian Gulf Aircraft Aid Fills Financing Gap - Bloomberg

The U.S. Export-Import Bank said governmental aircraft financing for Persian Gulf airlines such as Emirates doesn’t distort global markets because the funds fill a need that financial institutions aren’t meeting.

“When it comes to exports, banks have been more reluctant to make loans when it comes to foreign credits than domestic credits,” Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg told reporters today at a briefing in Dubai. “We exist to level that playing field and take out market distortions.”

U.S. and European airlines are urging governments to limit financing of aircraft exports to avoid giving an advantage to competitors abroad buying from Airbus SAS and Boeing Co., the Washington-based Air Transport Association trade group said in a letter yesterday to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Hochberg said the needs of plane manufacturers and carriers must be considered when private banks won’t give loans for purchases.

Dubai Electricity & Water Raises $2 Billion in Largest Bond Sale - Bloomberg

Dubai Electricity & Water Authority, the government-run utility, sold $2 billion of senior unsecured debt yesterday in its largest dollar-denominated bond sale.

The sale was split between $1.5 billion of 10-year, 7.375 percent bonds priced at par to yield 493.2 basis points more than similar-maturity U.S. Treasuries, and $500 million of 6.375 percent notes that pay 522.1 basis points more than benchmarks, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Emerging-market dollar bonds yield an average 245 basis points, or 2.45 percentage points, over Treasuries, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The utility raised dollars two weeks after the emirate sold $1.25 billion of debt in its first issue since the Dubai World credit crisis roiled global markets almost a year ago. Corporate bond sales from the Persian Gulf region have grown following the restructuring of Dubai World last month and surging demand for higher-yielding emerging-market assets, said Alan Roch, the head of Royal Bank of Scotland Plc’s bond syndicate desk in London for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

BMB Says It Bid $4 Billion for Atlantis Owner Kerzner - Bloomberg

BMB Group, a firm representing Malaysian investors, offered to pay as much as $4 billion for Kerzner International Holdings Ltd., the hotel and casino company that built Atlantis in the Bahamas and Dubai, said BMB founder Rayo Withanage.

The firm’s BMB Advisors Malaysia Ltd. unit sent a letter on Oct. 11 to Sol Kerzner, founder of Kerzner International, offering to pay $3.4 billion to $4 billion for his Bahamas-based company, according to a copy obtained by Bloomberg News. Kerzner International received the proposal and “the company is not for sale,” said Jennifer Glaisek, a spokeswoman.

BMB clients in Malaysia are putting up cash for the bid, Withanage said in a telephone interview from New York. They are attracted by the Atlantis properties, he said.