Kuala Lumpur: Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank), the country’s largest bank by assets, plans to expand the number of sukuk transactions through its offices in Bahrain, its senior executives told Gulf News on Tuesday.
“We have GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] presence and we are still exploring the wide opportunities that we have. We are facilitating more of GCC companies eyeing Asean as its markets or even Asean companies eyeing GCC,” Muzaffar Hesham, chief executive officer of Maybank Islamic Group head, Islamic Banking told Gulf News. “We are new players in the GCC, we also want to look at more of syndicate financing in the GCC.”
Currently, the bank has a presence in Saudi Arabia through its partly-owned Afaal Capital, where it hold a third of its stake.
“We have good profitable business on the transaction to transaction basis,” he said.
The bank, which is one of the leading arrangers of sukuk transactions, currently has about assets worth $42.65 billion (Dh156.62 billion), and has total financing of $32.29 billion.
The bank derives most of its business domestically, and only 10 per cent of it comes from its international operations, in which GCC contributes only 1.5 per cent.
The bank intends to scale up operations, eyeing more funds from the GCC, which has higher liquidity, he said.
“We are not going by country-specific names but liquidity is abundant there despite the fall in oil prices,” Nor Shahrizan Sulaiman, Deputy CEO of Maybank Islamic said.
Maybank sees potential in GCC economies and feels that there is abundunt liquidity in that part of the world.
Maybank was one of the six-member consortium to arrange $750 million five-year sukuk for Dubai Islamic Bank early this year.
“We are interested in the assets side rather than plain funding,” Sulaiman said.
CP programme:
Meanwhile, the bank also said it has set up a US commercial paper (CP) programme of up to $500 million in nominal value.
The bank said under the CP programme, its New York branch might issue, from time to time, notes up to a maximum aggregate amount outstanding at any time of that nominal value. has set up a US commercial paper (CP) programme of up to $500 million.
“The CP programme will give Maybank the flexibility to raise funds via the issuance of commercial papers from time to time which can be utilised for general corporate purposes,” the bank said in a statement.
Maybank Investment Bank is the principal adviser while Maybank Kim Eng Securities Pte Ltd is the lead arranger for the programme.
