The sovereign’s wakala sukuk attracted $9 billion worth of subscriptions, the finance ministry said, adding that the $1.2 billion, five-year tranche priced at 2.991 percent and the $800 million, 10-year at 4.646 percent, the finance ministry said.
The sukuk was distributed to over 320 investors, it said. Middle Eastern investors took up 29 percent of the paper, Malaysia 27 percent, other Asian investors 22 percent, Europe 14 percent and the US 8 percent.
“The deal was priced at the tighter end of the revised price guidance reflecting investor confidence in the Malaysian credit story,” the finance ministry said in a statement.
CIMB, Citi, HSBC and Maybank acted as the deal’s joint bookrunners and joint lead managers.
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services assigned an ‘A-’ long-term foreign currency preliminary issue rating to the Malaysian sukuk while Moody’s Investors Service gave them a provisional foreign currency rating of (P)A3.
The issue is Malaysia’s second offering in two years and comes at a time when the global sukuk market is showing tentative signs of recovery.
The Southeast Asian country last tapped the global market in May 2010 when it sold $1.25 billion of five-year sukuk ijara or Islamic leasing bonds at a yield of 3.928 percent.
Bankers said the new issue could encourage more issuers to come to the market, despite recent volatility in global financial markets due to worries about Greece’s debt crisis.
The strong demand was also due to the scarcity of Islamic paper, after Dubai’s debt restructuring and several high-profile defaults involving the sukuk of Kuwait’s International Investment Group, The Investment Dar and US energy firm East Cameron.
Global Islamic bond sales fell 26 percent to $14 billion in 2010, Thomson Reuters data showed.
