DUBAI: Dubai-based Islamic mortgage lender Tamweel said yesterday it was planning to launch up to 2 billion dirhams ($544.5 million) in Islamic bonds in the first quarter of 2009 despite the global liquidity crunch.
“There are ideas to sell sukuk to the local market ... They would be in the range of 1-2 billion dirhams,” Chairman Sheikh Khaled Al-Nahayan told Reuters on the sidelines of a property fair.
“Already there is a desire (for sukuk),” he said, adding that the liquidity squeeze had only affected certain companies in the financial sector. Tamweel priced a 1.1 billion dirham bond in July. Tamweel and fellow mortgage lender Amlak Finance said on Saturday they were in talks to agree a $2.4 billion merger, but the news failed to lift shares which have been tumbling for weeks on fears that the liquidity crunch has begun to affect Gulf Arab markets.
The merger also comes in the midst of a government crackdown on corruption in the real estate sector, which has already hit market sentiment and the shares of major developers. |
