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Dubai: Omniyat Holding, which runs a property firm in the UAE, wants to raise $500 million in bank loan and by selling Islamic bonds to finance expansion in Dubai and abroad, a local newspaper reported on Saturday.
Omniyat is in talks with two international banks to raise the funds, Tony Manning, Omniyat's chief financial officer, was quoted as saying.
Last year, Omniyat said it planned to raise $200 million by selling Islamic bonds or sukuk, the newspaper said.
"Since the market conditions were not right then, we decided not to enter the credit market," Manning said.
Spreads on more than $15 billion of Islamic bonds on the HSBC-DIFX GCC Sukuk Index more than doubled to 217 basis points from June to January 23.
"Now, we are looking at all the options as borrowing costs have come down," Manning said.
Omniyat Properties plans to quadruple its Dubai property portfolio to Dh21 billion ($5.72 billion) by investing Dh15 billion in new projects this year, said Mehdi Amjad, the firm's chief executive officer, according to the newspaper.
Omniyat, which wants to expand into Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, also plans to set up a mortgage finance company complying with Islamic law, which bans the payment of interest, this year, Amjad said.
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