KUALA LUMPUR, (Reuters) – Malaysia plans to sell more than $1 billion in global Islamic bonds and will hold investor presentations at the end of June to market the offering, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday.
Maybank , CIMB , Citi and HSBC are arranging the issue, said the source who declined to be named as the sale has not been announced.
Maybank and CIMB declined to comment. Citi and HSBC were not immediately available for comment.
The Southeast Asian country, which has the world’s largest sukuk market, last tapped the global market in May 2010 when it sold $1.25 billion of five-year sukuk ijara or Islamic leasing bonds at a yield of 3.928 percent.
IFR, a Thomson Reuters unit, had earlier reported that the government had picked four banks including CIMB, Citigroup and HSBC to arrange the issue.
The planned Malaysian issue comes as markets are anticipating a revival in global sukuk sales this year.
HSBC Middle East, Bahrain’s Al Baraka Bank and Qatar Islamic Bank are all eyeing sukuk sales.
Islamic bond issuance fell 26 percent to $14 billion in 2010 in the aftermath of Dubai’s debt restructuring and high-profile sukuk defaults that exposed legal uncertainties surrounding these instruments, according to Thomson Reuters data.