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Weekly Lists
March 31, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 25
bne:Banker Turkey reportedly
raises $1.25bn with six-year sukuk issue
Turkey's Halkbank rejects US sanctions- busting charges against deputy CEO
Turkey borrowed $1.25bn through a six-year, dollar-denominated sukuk at around 5% on March 30, bankers told Reuters.
The sukuk, marking Turkey’s fifth such issue since it entered the Islamic bond market in 2012, drew demand of more than $3.7bn sold at US Treasury mid-swaps plus 285 basis points, equivalent to a yield of around 4.98%, according to the news service.
The latest issue increased Turkey's outstanding dollar sukuk to $6bn, it added.
The country’s treasury has not yet made any official announcement on the result of the sukuk issue.
Turkish state-owned lender Halkbank has rejected sanctions-bust- ing accusations made against deputy CEO Mehmet Hakan Atilla – arrested on March 28 in the US – as baseless, saying “the bank’s operations and transactions fully comply with national and interna- tional regulations”.
Atilla was arrested on March 28 at New York’s JFK Airport on charges of conspiring with Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab to help Iran evade sanctions.
The news sent the bank’s shares into a tailspin. The share price of Halkbank has fallen 15% since March 28. The bank's shares were trading 0.87% lower at TRY10.25 (€2.63) at the close on March 30.
Several Slovenian MPs have cautioned against selling in haste con- trol of the country’s largest lender Nova Ljubljanska Banka
(NLB), which is slated for privatisation by the end of the year.
The public in Slovenia has been divided over NLB’s privatisation, but the government is keen to reduce its current 100% stake to 25% plus one share via an IPO, and is also required to sell the bank under its commitments to the European Commission.
However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on March 28 it remained concerned about the plan to privatise the bank with
the restriction that no private investor can have higher ownership than the state’s 25%. Dropping the restriction would allow strategic investors to take a controlling stake and further improve the bank’s performance, it argued.
Slovenia’s MPs caution against haste in NLB sale