New Mazoon sukuk edges over par; Middle East credits active; Inkia, Argentina also price

By Rebecca Melvin

New York, Nov. 2 – Mazoon Electricity Co. SAOC’s newly priced 5.2% sukuk traded up to 100.57 bid, 100.67 offered on Thursday after the Oman electricity company priced $500 million of the 10-year unsecured senior certificates at the tight end of talk, a London-based trader said.

The deal was issued by Mazoon Assets Co. SAOC, a special purpose vehicle.

Trading in paper in the Middle East region overall was active with good two-way flow, the trader said.

Among other deals that priced, a $450 million offering of 10-year notes from Peru’s Inkia Energy Ltd. priced at par to yield 5 7/8%. That paper came at the tight end of talk, and Banco Hipotecario SA priced $400 million equivalent of Argentine peso-denominated floating-rate notes due 2022.

Also from Argentina was a sovereign-issued triple tranche euro deal for €2.75 billion. The Argentina deal included a €1 billion tranche of 3 3/8% notes due Jan. 15, 2023 priced at 99.425 to yield 3½%; a 10-year tranche of 5¼% notes of the same size priced at 99.634 to yield 5.3%; and a €750 million tranche of 6¼% notes due Nov. 9, 2047 priced at 99.333 to yield 6.3%.

Markets reactivated after a brief pause earlier in the week in anticipation of potentially market moving headlines. But most of the expected announcements were received with market calm.

The U.S. Republican House of Representatives unveiled its tax reform plan on Thursday, which proposes to make permanent the corporate tax rate going down to 20%.

Also as expected, President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that Jerome Powell is his choice for next chairman of the Federal Reserve. If Powell is confirmed, it is expected he will to line up fairly consistently with the current policies under Chair Janet Yellen. He is however in favor of reduced regulations, which lines up with Trump’s agenda.

Among other events on watch that came in as expected was Wednesday’s policy update of the Federal Open Market Committee. It left rates unchanged and pointed to solid U.S. economic growth and a stronger labor market, read as signals that the Fed is still on track for a rate increase in December.

Ahead is the U.S. jobs report for October due to be released on Friday. Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal expect employers to have added 315,000 jobs and for the unemployment rate to hold steady at 4.2%.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.