Doha: Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB), the country's second-largest lender by market value, will delay selling sukuk worth at least $500 million (Dh1.84 billion) due to a blip in market confidence, people familiar with the matter have said.
"The bond is on hold because they were worried about pricing," said one person familiar with the lender's plans.
In February, Zawya Dow Jones reported that QIB, was mulling the launch of a sukuk, or Islamic bond, worth at least $500 million to improve its debt-to-equity ratio to help it meet growth plans.
Credit Suisse Group, HSBC Holding and QInvest, the Doha-based investment bank, were appointed as advisors on the deal.
Bonds
The global Islamic bond market saw $8.086 billion worth of issues in the fourth quarter of 2009, seven-times higher than a year earlier when just $949 million sukuk were sold, according to Zawya.com's Sukuk Monitor service.
Issuance hit record levels in Qatar's nascent bond market last year amid growing investor appetite for exposure to the Gulf country, whose economy is booming on the back of rising revenues from liquefied natural gas, or LNG, exports. Qatar is the world's largest exporter of LNG by far.
