JAKARTA: Maybank Kim Eng Holdings Ltd. and Clifford Chance LLP are training Hong Kong staff for the city’s first sukuk sales before lawmakers review a bill to give the debt equal tax treatment.
Maybank, the world’s third-largest Islamic bond arranger in 2012, has been preparing its investment banking teams in Hong Kong and China to chase Shariah-compliant deals, Chief Executive Officer Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said in a Jan. 4 interview. Clifford Chance, the U.K.’s highest grossing law firm, has moved a sukuk specialist from Dubai to the city, Qudeer Latif, the company’s head of global Islamic finance, said before the bill is first debated by the Legislative Council tomorrow.
Demand for debt that complies with the Koran’s ban on interest will triple to $950 billion by 2017, Ernst & Young LLP said in a Dec. 10 report, compared with the $211 billion of the notes outstanding as of June 2012, Bank Negara Malaysia data show. Clifford Chance’s Qudeer said Chinese companies would benefit from tapping oil wealth from the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia has $635 billion of foreign-exchange reserves.
“The relocation is testament to the fact that we see a significant upturn in Islamic finance activities in East Asia,” he said in a Jan. 3 interview from Dubai. “I would fully expect that a Hong Kong issuer, or issuers in Asia who have assets in Hong Kong, will take the opportunity” to sell Shariah-compliant bonds once the bill is passed, he said. (Bloomberg/msw)
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