Kuwait- Issuance totals $22 bln by Feb end  

(MENAFN - Arab Times) Kuwait Finance House "KFH Research" stated in a report that the total sukuk issuance for the past January and February reached 22 billion through 160 issuance processes where the Ringgit Malaysia purchased the largest share. While the sovereign Sukuk remained the prevailed ones; like the last year ... The details are as follows.

Sukuk issuance momentum continues in 2013 with a total issuance of 22.0bln to date. Despite this being lower than the 28.3bln issued over the same period of 2012, the monthly average for the year is slightly higher than seen throughout 2012 and provides an initial annualised forecast of 132bln for the year.

The Malaysian market share remains near the 70% range in February following a 74.0% market share in 2012. Indonesia has started the year strongly with a total of 2.1bln issued already, up 170.3% y-o-y so far.

Meanwhile the Turkish government continues to issue local currency papers for the local domestic market to soak up, this year a TRY1.5bln (855.1mln) Ijarah issuance. Governments remained the majority issuers during February, with sovereigns and government-related entities accounting for over 90% of issuances during the month.

Notable issuances during the month include the latest placement by DanaInfra, the SPV in charge raising funds used to finance the building of the mass rail transit project in the Malaysian capital. A four tranche sukuk Murabahah tenured between 10 to 20 years was successfully subscribed to with a final order book worth a combined 484mln.

The Indonesian government was, however, placed the largest single issuance during the month worth 1.5bln. The sukuk Ijarah was issued as a retail sukuk generating significant demand from investors.

Sovereign issuers made up 86.0% of the primary market in February while government related entities accounted for 4.8% and corporates took the remaining 9.2%. This represents the lowest amount of corporate issuances since April 2011. Malaysian ringgit accounted for 68.1% of issuances during the month as compared to 83.5% in January.