Al Tamimi & Company, the Middle East’s largest law firm, recently acted as legal counsel for Boubyan Bank K.S.C.P., a Kuwaiti Islamic bank firm headquartered in Salmiya, in the issuance of sukuk worth $250 million.
Boubyan Bank’s investment division, Boubyan Capital, handled international coordination in partnership with Standard Chartered and HSBC. Al Tamimi’s leader and partner Alex Saleh, along with senior associate Omar Handoush and associates El Hassan Abdelrazek and Abdullah Masud, led the transaction.
The event was the first Kuwaiti-issued sukuk transaction to enhance Tier 1 capital, defined as the core measure of a bank's financial adequacy or strength as determined by an industry regulator. Tier 1 usually consists of core capital (primarily of common stock and disclosed reserves or retained earnings), but may also include nonredeemable noncumulative preferred stock.
"We are very excited to have had the opportunity to work on the first Tier 1 Capital sukuk issuance emanating out of Kuwait with Boubyan Bank,” Saleh said. “We expect that this transaction will serve as a template for other Islamic banks in Kuwait and the region as more Islamic banks will try to increase their liquidity through the issuance of Shari'a compliant debt instruments."
To guaranty Shariah compliance, the transaction used a Mudarabah structure. Going forward, it will be listed on NASDAQ and the Irish Stock Exchange.
Al Tamimi & Company operates 16 offices throughout the Middle East, including Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Oman and Bahrain.
Alerts Sign-up