Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said: “The issuance is not only a global first on many fronts but also a strong recognition of Malaysia’s Islamic finance industry’s innovative capabilities in structuring sukuk to help advance Malaysia’s SDG-focused policies towards achieving our Shared Prosperity Vision 2030.”
Due to the overwhelming demand, the government decided to upsize the initial target size of US$1bil to US$1.3bil. “This demonstrates the market’s confidence in Malaysia’s economic recovery and growth prospects, despite a challenging past year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, ” said the MoF. The sukuk is also unique as its underlying assets are sustainable assets, being vouchers representing travel entitlement on Malaysia’s Light Rail Transit, Mass Rapid Transit and KL Monorail networks.
The Sustainability Sukuk is issued via a special-purpose vehicle, Malaysia Wakala Sukuk Bhd, and based on a new SDG Sukuk Framework. After a virtual roadshow, the allocation was well-spread globally, with 55% of the principal amount of the 10-year sukuk distributed to investors in Asia, 33% to Europe, Middle-East and Africa and 12% to the United States, while 46% of the principal amount of the 30-year sukuk was distributed to investors in Asia, 33% to EMEA and 21% to the United States.
Confidence ? When ringgit is tanking and the golden goose Petronas needs to borrow ? Fortune500 Petronas dont even have USD1.5bil ?