U.S. Does Not Have Monopoly on Debt Driven Greed
The pricked debt bubble that spanned the range of Icelandic banks to Donald Trump (read more) has now spread to Dubai commercial real estate, evidenced by the plastering of recent global headlines. At the center of the storm is Dubai World, a quasi-government owned conglomerate of Dubai, which is in the process of negotiating a $26 billion debt restructuring with the government and sukuk bondholders.
This overleveraged Dubai market ($80 billion in total debt) helped finance the tallest building in the world, largest man-made islands, and a ski-resort based in the desert, in the face of collapsing real estate prices. Critical to Dubai World’s debt restructuring is a $3.5 billion sukuk bond issued by its commercial real estate subsidiary Nakheel Development (“Nakheel”). So what exactly is a sukuk (plural of sakk)?
Investopedia lists the following definition for sukuk:
“An Islamic financial certificate, similar to a bond in Western finance, that complies with Sharia, Islamic religious law. Because the traditional Western interest paying bond structure is not permissible, the issuer of a sukuk sells an investor group the certificate, who then rents it back to the issuer for a predetermined rental fee. The issuer also makes a contractual promise to buy back the bonds at a future date at par value.”
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