Gulf International Bank to issue Saudi riyal-denominated bonds in KSA.Summary: Gulf International Bank (GIB See NIST binary. ) has announced its debut Saudi Riyal The riyal (Arabic: ريال, ISO 4217 code: SAR) is the currency of Saudi Arabia. It is abbreviated as ر.س or SR. It is presently subdivided into 100 halala (Arabic: هللة). bond issuance through its Riyadh branch. Gulf International Bank (GIB) has announced its debut Saudi Riyal bond issuance through its Riyadh branch. The Bank has mandated GIB Financial Services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. and HSBC HSBC Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation HSBC Humane Society of Broward County (Florida) HSBC Humane Society of Bay County (Bay County, Michigan) as joint lead arrangers and book runners for the bond transaction. This will be GIB's first Saudi Riyal bond issue. The transaction is expected to be launched subject to market conditions following an investor road show. The bonds will be offered only to institutional/sophisticated investors in Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia (sä  `dē ərā`bēə, sou`–, sô–), officially Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, kingdom (2005 est. pop. through a private placement. Issues related to
pricing, size, and maturity of the bond will be determined through a
book-building and price discovery process, similar to the book-building
process for international bonds.
Dr. Yahya A. Alyahya, GIB's Chief Executive Officer, said "this is a groundbreaking transaction, representing the Bank's first bond issue in Saudi Riyals. The bond issue will further enhance the Bank's funding base and extend the maturity profile of its liabilities." He explained that "the timing of the bond issue is important, as a change in financial regulations is anticipated in the near future in light of the recent global credit crunch Credit Crunch An economic condition whereby investment capital is difficult to obtain. Banks and investors become weary of lending funds to corporations thereby driving up the price of debt products for borrowers. . We believe that the planned new regulations will require banks to fund medium and longer term assets with longer tenor liabilities." GIB is a leading merchant bank in the Middle East with its principal focus on the Gulf Cooperation Council states. Its primary shareholder is the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. The Bank has branches in Riyadh and Jeddah and is planning to open a third branch in the Eastern Province in early 2010. GIB provides client-led, innovative financial products and services to a wide customer base in the region, including investment banking, asset management, project and structured finance and Islamic banking. This Saudi Riyal bond issue reinforces GIB's pioneering role in the development of the region's capital markets. In 2002, GIB was the first Middle Eastern financial institution to issue senior debt, with a US$ 325 million 5-year floating rate note. GIB's leadership role in the regional capital market was reaffirmed in April 2005 when the Bank finalised an US$ 800 million syndicated 5-year term deposit facility. This was the largest syndicated term deposit facility raised by a regional financial institution. GIB was also the first financial institution in the Middle East to issue a Tier 2 subordinated note (US$ 400 million) in 2005. GIB has investment grade ratings from all three major international credit rating agencies Credit Rating Agencies Firms that compile information on and issue public credit ratings for a large number of companies. . GIB was the first bank in the GCC GCC: see Gulf Cooperation Council. (compiler, programming) GCC - The GNU Compiler Collection, which currently contains front ends for C, C++, Objective-C, Fortran, Java, and Ada, as well as libraries for these languages (libstdc++, libgcj, etc). to be awarded long-term investment grade credit ratings by all of the major international agencies. The Bank's current long-term foreign currency debt ratings are: Fitch: A, Moody's: A3, Standard & Poor's: BBB BBB A medium grade assigned to a debt obligation by a rating agency to indicate an adequate ability to pay interest and repay principal. However, adverse developments are more likely to impair this ability than would be the case for bonds rated A and above. +. In addition, GIB is strongly capitalized with Total and Tier I capital adequacy ratios of 20.0% and 14.7% respectively at the end of June 2009. These ratios significantly exceed regulatory minimum ratios and are also high by international comparison. 2009 Mena Report (www.menareport.com) 2009 Al Bawaba (Albawaba.com) Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |
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