Friday 1 June 2012

FINANCE - Sberbank deal looking imminent

Russia’s biggest bank Sberbank is set to sign a preliminary agreement next week to buy failed Franco-Belgian lender Dexia’s Turkish unit DenizBank, a source close to the negotiations said on June 1.

“An agreement is planned to be signed June 7-8 ... It will be preliminary,” he said, adding that discussions on price would continue after the signing.

The Belgian government had been looking to raise 1.5 times DenizBank’s book value, which according to Reuters calculations is around $3.9 billion, based on the current exchange rate of the Turkish lira.

Business - Dubai impresses UK

Dubai was put under the microscope by prospective investors at a packed event held at the London Chamber of Commerce in the heart of the financial centre.
Shaikh Mohammed bin Maktoum Al Maktoum, First Secretary of the Embassy of the UAE in London, said it was particularly significant that “40 per cent of attendees were unfamiliar with Dubai and interested in its potential,” representing new business opportunities.

Abu Dhabi: Seeking bonds abroad

With investor demand for Islamic bonds growing, Abu Dhabi-based businesses are increasingly turning to the sukuk market to finance their activities, with four companies since November 2011 having issued sharia-compliant debt instruments. Meanwhile, the first three months of 2012 saw two major conventional bond issuances from Dolphin Energy and the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD). While the debt market looks healthy – particularly given the context of a challenging global economic climate – one factor that could increase activity in the fixed-income market would be a bond sale from the Abu Dhabi government, which has not issued sovereign debt since 2009.

Following a quiet period in the UAE debt markets, in November 2011 two banks – Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) and Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) – issued sukuks. ADCB, the second-largest lender in the emirate as measured by assets, raised $500m from its five-year Islamic bond, its first foray into the sukuk market, at a profit rate of 4.07%. This was followed shortly by a $500m, five-year sukuk priced at 3.78% from ADIB, the lender’s third issuance of a sharia-compliant bond.

gulfnews : Dubai refinery looks at India due to cost advantages

Al Khaleej refinery of Dubai, UAE, bought at least 300,000 tonnes of Indian sugars so far in calendar 2012, displacing traditional origin Brazil due to India’s cost advantages, European traders said on Thursday..
The Al Khaleej Dubai refinery was not immediately available for comment.
India, the world’s No.2 sugar producer after Brazil, has an exportable surplus this year, and a big freight advantage over Brazil for the Dubai refinery, which can potentially process up to around two million tonnes of raw sugar a year.

Sawiris backs bid for Egyptian bank EFG Hermes | Reuters

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris is helping finance a takeover bid for Egypt's biggest investment bank EFG Hermes that would ensure the company is not broken up, the bid consortium said on Friday.

Planet IB, the group of Gulf investors and bankers behind the bid move, is led by financial industry interests including Chief Executive Ahmad al-Husseiny, who until last month was managing director of Egypt-based private equity firm Citadel Capital.

The move comes as EFG, whose market value has more than halved to less than $870 million since the national uprising that ousted President Hosni Mabarak last year, is in the process of forming a joint venture with Qatar's QInvest that would give the Qatari firm control over its main business.

Saudi unlikely to cut soon despite oil under $100 | Reuters

Oil's fall below $100 a barrel is unlikely to trigger a swift supply cut from OPEC power Saudi Arabia, which is pumping at its highest rate in decades, because its budget can comfortably withstand a much lower price.
Others in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, including Iran and Iraq, need a higher price than Saudi Arabia to balance budgets and they may call on Riyadh to throttle back when producers meet on June 14 to set output policy.
Having campaigned aggressively to bring down oil prices that were damaging global economic growth, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi may be reluctant to turn down the taps just yet.

Dubai's Jebel Ali Free Zone picks banks for sukuk roadshow | Reuters

Dubai's Jebel Ali Free Zone has picked seven banks to arrange a series of investor meetings, with a possible Islamic bond, or sukuk, transaction to follow, lead managers said on Friday.

The firm, fully-owned by the Dubai government, mandated Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Citigroup, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD, National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Standard Chartered to arrange the roadshows, a document from the banks said.

The investor meeting will begin on June 5 and take in Asia, the Middle East and Europe and a benchmark-sized sukuk will be issued subject to market conditions.