Dubai Bank: Successful pricing of sukuk

Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) announced Thursday the successful pricing of a perpetual Islamic bond (sukuk) worth 1 billion U.S. dollars. The tier-1 Islamic bond was priced with a profit rate at 6.25 percent. The launch of the first sukuk issued this year attracted "more than 14 billion dollars on the back of demand from a diverse investor base," said DIB in a statement to the local bourse Dubai Financial Market. Executed and priced at a profit rate of 6.25 percent, ample investors' interest was drawn due to a road-show covering the key financial centers (London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Geneva, Zurich, Abu Dhabi and Dubai), the statement said. Abdullah al-Hamli, the chief executive at DIB said "this immense interest of investors shows the positive outlook that the market has with regards to Dubai and the United Arab Emirates." Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum said that he aims to transform the emirate into the global center for Islamic finance in 2013. In order to achieve this goal, Dubai has to beat Malaysians as a sukuk center worldwide, where in 2012, 70 percent of all global Islamic bonds were issued.