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Emirates NBD lists $1b bond

Emirates NBD, Dubai's largest bank, has  listed a $1 billion conventional bond on the Nasdaq Dubai stock exchange.
Welcoming the listing, Nasdaq Dubai, the international financial exchange, said the move supports Emirates NBD's activities as one of the region's leading banking groups, including Islamic banking, investment banking, private banking, asset management, global markets & treasury and brokerage operations.
The joint lead managers for the bond were BNP Paribas, Emirates NBD Capital, First Abu Dhabi Bank, HSBC, Nomura International and Standard Chartered Bank. Clifford Chance and Norton Rose Fulbright (Middle East) served as legal advisors for the transaction.
Emirates NBD is the largest issuer of conventional bonds on Nasdaq Dubai with a total nominal value of $5.28 billion from eight listings.
The total value of all conventional bonds and Sukuk on Nasdaq Dubai has now reached $77.28 billion.
Last year was challenging for most asset classes and GCC bonds were no exception, according to an Emirates NBD research note. Rising US interest rates and receding dollar liquidity drained investor appetite for emerging market assets and affected the bid for USD denominated bonds from the GCC region negatively. "That said, with average yield above 4.5 per cent, coupon collection helped GCC bonds to avoid losses. Total return on Barclays Bloomberg GCC bond index was a mild gain of 0.18 per cent."
Looking ahead, the bank expects US rate hikes to slow or pause in 2019. "Assuming that oil prices remain in the $60-$80 /b range, total return on GCC bonds is expected to remain positive in 2019 albeit in a very low single digit percentage."
In 2018, GCC bonds outperformed their global counterparts. The GCC fixed rate USD-denominated bond and sukuk universe increased by 17 per cent from total outstanding issues of $264 billion as at December 2017 to $310 billion as of mid-December 2018. New bonds issued in 2018 surpassed the $77 billion mark. While this is less than the $85 billion recorded in 2017, it was achieved as oil revenues were on the rise, helping government budget deficits to narrow and their external funding needs to diminish, analysts said. 
- issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com