DUBAI -- Global issuance of sukuk, or Islamic bonds, rallied during the third quarter with the value of sukuk issued rising 82% in the latest sign that confidence is returning to capital markets.
Data from Zawya.com's Sukuk Monitor shows the value of Islamic bonds issued world-wide for the third quarter rose to $6.2 billion, from $3.4 billion for the same quarter of 2008.
Investors are putting more faith in the sukuk market, seen as a more stable platform to raise capital, as the financial crisis eases and global market conditions improve rapidly, bankers say.
Sentiment over the $3.5 billion sukuk due in December by Nakheel, a real-estate unit of government-owned Dubai World, has improved in recent weeks after Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai's ruler and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, said the emirate can meet debt obligations, estimated at as much as $80 billion.
Both conventional and Islamic deals were successfully placed, as investors became more comfortable with the economic environment.
Total global sukuk issuance stood at $13.5 billion at the end of September, data from Zawya's Sukuk Monitor shows. That is close to the total global market for primary Islamic bonds in 2008, which raised $15.2 billion, according to Zawya.com.
Mukhtar Hussain, global chief executive officer of HSBC Amanah told Zawya Dow Jones in a recent interview that the volume of Islamic bonds issued globally this year could hit $15 billion as the financial crisis eases and global market conditions improve rapidly.
Sukuk comply with Islam's ban on interest and are backed by physical assets from which returns are derived and paid to bondholders instead. European and Asian investors are increasingly buying into Middle East Islamic bonds in a bid to diversify their portfolios into a market showing greater signs of recovery, according to Mark Waters, BNP Paribas's head of debt capital markets in the Middle East.
During the third quarter, more than $1.8 billion worth of sukuk were sold by power companies and utilities world-wide, followed by $1.5 billion from oil and gas.
Primary sukuk issued out of the Middle East and North Africa region accounted for 59% of total volume of global sukuk this quarter.
Saudi Arabia topped the list of countries of origin, enjoying 44% of the total volume, followed by Malaysia at 38% and Bahrain 8.5%, according to Zawya data.
