Saturday 16 July 2011

Saudi Stock Market close - July 16, 2011

General Index
Intraday 3 month

* market data delayed by 20 min.
Daily Statistics
Date16/07/2011
General Index6523.01
Change (%)0.22%
Change 14.21
T. Volume74486829
T. Companies 150
Advanced70
Declined51
Unchanged27
UnTraded2

Kuwait- $47 bln Sukuk issued during first half: KFH

Nakheel to issue sukuk in July: report - Emirates 24/7

Nakheel properties is pushing ahead with plans to issue Dh4.8 billion sukuk (Islamic bonds) on schedule this month after securing approval for its debt restructuring by all lenders, a newspaper said on Saturday.

Quoting an unnamed senior source in Nakheel, the Sharjah-based Arabic language daily Alkhaleej said sukuk would be issued and managed by the German Deutsche Bank but they would initially not be listed.

The source told the paper that Nakheel, the real estate arm of the government-owned conglomerate Dubai World, had secured full agreement by all creditors to its plan to restructure $2.2 billion (Dh eight billion) debt.

Gulf investors worried Egypt seen pressured | A1SaudiArabia.com

Gulf firms quarterly results will take a back seat to developments in Europe as investors worry about whether Italy and Spain will become the next victims of the euro zone debt crisis and the macroeconomic fallout from such an event.

Corporate results issued so far have done little to spur significant buying with volumes remaining seasonally low. Gulf Arab markets are traditionally quiet during the summer with many market participants on holidays and, this year, reducing positions ahead of the holy month of Ramadan.

“Earnings season is not exciting anybody right now. Nobody is taking a view one way or another,”' said Akram Annous, MENA strategist at Al Mal Capital. “Everything thats going on is very international.”

Most holders of Mideast lowest-rated bonds at risk | A1SaudiArabia.com

Majority holders of the Middle Easts lowest-rated bonds, may be at risk should Syrias popular uprising hurt Lebanons political stability and economic growth.

“The main risk for the banking sector is that rich Lebanese expatriates who deposit their cash in Lebanese banks would withdraw their money because of a deterioration in the nations politics,” Rami Sidani, the Dubai-based head of Middle East and North Africa investment at Schroder Investment Management Ltd., said Thursday.

The cost of protecting against Lebanon defaulting on its debt is the highest in the Middle East. Five-year credit-default swaps gained four basis points to 354 this week, according to data compiled by CMA, which is owned by CME Group Inc. and compiles prices quoted by dealers in the privately negotiated market.

Court rules against Agility in fraud case appeal | Reuters

A U.S. appeals court has ruled against an attempt by Kuwaiti logistics firm Agility to avert prosecution over charges it defrauded the U.S. Army in multibillion-dollar contracts.

Agility was the largest supplier to the U.S. Army in the Middle East during the war in Iraq. Charges that it overcharged the Army over 41 months on $8.5 billion in supply contracts made the case politically sensitive in Washington and Kuwait.

The ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta should allow the fraud case against Agility to proceed after more than a year of legal argument over whether the company was correctly served with an indictment by U.S. prosecutors in 2009.

Trailblazer aims to stay in Abu Dhabi oil game - The National

Forget 3D imaging and horizontal drilling. Partex Oil and Gas, a Portuguese company vying to retain a stake in Abu Dhabi's biggest oil concession, has a more emotional selling point.

'We are not a major. We are not aiming at competing with ExxonMobil or Shell,' said Jose Pereira, the Middle East representative of Partex. 'Let me put it in a broader scope. The unique feature that characterises Partex is that the whole of our dividends, in a way, revert to mankind.'

The emirate's largest concession expires in 2014 after a 75-year run, and its five foreign shareholders - Partex, with 2 per cent, and BP, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell and Total, with 9.5 per cent each - are campaigning to keep their slice of the pie. At stake is 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) of production capacity, half the UAE's total.