Network expansion: Mobilink to raise $68.6m via sukuk

ABU DHABI: Pakistan Mobile Communications (Mobilink) plans to raise Rs6.9 billion ($68.6 million) via Islamic bonds this quarter, Pakistan Credit Rating Agency said in a statement. The sukuk would help fund the network expansion of Mobilink, a subsidiary of Global Telecom Holding, and majority-owned by Russia’s VimpelCom. The credit guarantee will be extended by Mauritius-based GuarantCo, a specialised financial guarantor, indirectly owned by the development agencies of Britain, Switzerland, Sweden and the Netherlands. Credit guarantees for sukuk are rare because of the profit-sharing nature of Islamic finance, but they could prove to be an important development, attracting a wider range of corporate and sovereign issuers to the Islamic bond market.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th,  2015.

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