Zaid Ibrahim & Co. (a member of ZICOlaw) acted as the Malaysian counsel for the joint lead arrangers and managers in the Government of Malaysia’s first international sharia compliant offering since 2011. The dual tranche Reg S/ 144A US$1.5 billion offering was the first Islamic finance deal in the world to use transportation rights as part of the pool of underlying assets. The 30-year tranche was the Malaysia’s Government inaugural issuance, and the longest tenured sukuk ever by a sovereign, and fulfilled Malaysia’s objective of making the issuance a new benchmark. HSBC, CIMB Investment Bank Berhad and Standard Chartered Bank are the joint lead managers and Clifford Chance is the advisor to the joint lead managers as to matters of English law and US federal securities laws. The Government of Malaysia was represented by Linklaters as the international legal counsel and Adnan, Sundra & Low as Malaysian counsel.
The deal although oversubscribed, was well distributed among the various investor in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the U.S., bringing an aggregate interest of over US$9 billion from a combined investor base of over 450 accounts in orders. This has made the sukuk issuance one of the most prominent sales of bonds in Asia and it has also set a landmark pricing level for other sovereigns. The 10-year tranche was oversubscribed by almost 7 times and the 30-year tranche oversubscribed by approximately 6 times. The Sukuk issued via a special purpose entity, Malaysian Sovereign Sukuk Berhad, employs a structure utilising Shariah-compliant commodities, leasable assets and non-pyhsical income-generating assets.
The Zaid Ibrahim & Co. team was led by Lilian Liew, the Linklaters team was led by Singapore partner Kevin Wong and Hong Kong partner Pam Shores. The Clifford Chance team was jointly led by Dubai partner Qudeer Latif and Hong Kong partner, Crawford Brickley.
Zaid Ibrahim & Co. has been involved in highly innovative and market-leading Islamic financing matters and have recently worked on the award-winning US$500 million Cahaya Capital exchangeable sukuk, EXIM US$300 million of Sukuk Wakalah, and on the US$500 million IFFIm sukuk.
