Malaysia sukuk target for National Bank of Abu Dhabi

National Bank of Abu Dhabi has said it will return to Malaysian credit markets this month as it sees an improving outlook for Islamic finance issuances.

NBAD said today that it would resume its Islamic bond programme in Malaysia, saying it would soon launch a 10-year sukuk issuance worth 500m Malaysian ringgit (Dh586.62m).

Mahmood Al Aradi, general manager for financial markets at NBAD, told Bloomberg: "December is normally a challenging issuance window but the market conditions and demand for our name remain vibrant," he said. "It's an opportunity for us to price and execute swiftly."

NBAD previously issued another 500m ringgit sukuk in June of this year, before tapping Australian markets in October.

Emmanuel Volland, a credit analyst at Standard and Poor's, said: "NBAD has been trying to diversify its funding for the past year in various markets, Malaysia has been one of them."

He said that Abu Dhabi's banks were seeing a revival of attempts to raise money through longer-dated bonds, which had stalled upon the arrival of the global financial crisis.

"Apparently a window of opportunity has been open for the past few months and several of the top tier banks have been trying to benefit," he said.

NBAD's debts are due to peak at Dh3.4bn in 2014, according to data from Bloomberg. The bank must finance Dh17.5bn in the next decade, much of it maturing before 2015.