QInvest, Qatar’s leading investment bank and one of the most prominent Islamic financial institutions in the world, has been at the forefront of global Sukuk activity in 2014. It has advised on seven Sukuk transactions thus far in 2014, with a total value of US$3.5 billion, which represents approximately 20% of the international Sukuk market.

During the second half of 2014, QInvest has advised on the Government of Hong Kong’s maiden Sukuk, which raised US$1 billion. It also advised Goldman Sachs on its US$500 million Sukuk and assisted the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg with its debut Euro-denominated Islamic issuance, helping it to raise its first €200 million five-year Sukuk. During the first half of 2014, QInvest worked on a range of Sukuk mandates in the GCC and more widely across the region, including the issuances from Kuveyt Turk (US$500 million), Dar Al Arkan (US$400 million), Turkiye Finans (US$500 million) and Al Baraka Turk (US$350 million).

Mr Tamim Hamad Al-Kawari, Chief Executive Officer of QInvest, commented:

“2014 has so far been an extremely active year for global Sukuk issuance, which demonstrates its increasing attractiveness and widening appeal as a source of funding. QInvest has been involved in a number of these transactions and we are excited to see Islamic finance become much more mainstream, with a number of non-Muslim states across Europe, Asia and Africa successfully completing over-subscribed Sukuk issuances. Now that more Islamic benchmarks have been established by sovereigns, we expect the next wave of activity to be in the corporate space. QInvest has a strong pipeline of deal flow for the remainder of 2014 and beyond, which will see us continuing to work very closely with corporates, financial institutions and sovereigns.”