Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC), the biggest chemicals maker by market value, is in the process of selling about $1.3 billion of Islamic bonds in Saudi riyals. The company has scheduled meetings with investors starting on May 3, with an aim of completing the borrowing by May 14, Chief Financial Officer Mutlaq Al-Morished said in an interview as reported by BIME on Tuesday. HSBC Holdings and a venture between Calyon and Banque Saudi Fransi are arranging the issue. SABIC is selling bonds for “general corporate use,'' Al-Morished said. “The Saudi market has good liquidity so it should go well'' even as a global credit crisis freezes global debt markets, he said. The global Islamic finance industry's assets under management are expanding by 15 percent a year and may have topped $1 trillion, according to the Malaysia-based Islamic Financial Services Board. Saudi Arabia's Capital Markets Authority on Monday said it approved SABIC's request to sell as much as SR 5 billion of Islamic bonds, known as Sukuk. SABIC sold SR 8 billion of 20-year Sukuk in July. The floating-rate notes pay a spread of 0.38 percentage point more than the three-month Saudi interbank offered rate and SABIC has a right to buy them back after five years, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. The Sibor rate was 5.05 percent at the time of the 2007 sale. It was last at 2.3 percent, the data added. Borrowing at the same cost as last year is “do-able,'' Al-Morished said. The exact size of the sale “will depend on the market and our book building process,'' he said. Sukuk are typically asset- based securities paying an agreed profit rate instead of interest. Gulf sales of Sukuk plummeted to $488 million in the first quarter from $3.9 billion in the same period a year earlier as losses on subprime-related securities caused investors to avoid all but the safest government debt. SABIC has $16.2 billion of loans and bonds outstanding, Bloomberg data showed. It has an A1 credit rating from Moody's Investors Service and an equivalent A+ from Standard & Poor's, their fifth-highest investment grades.
