Bahrain launches sukuk, nixes conventional bonds; Turkcell mandates; Vrio prices notes

By Rebecca Melvin

New York, March 28 – The Kingdom of Bahrain launched a $1 billion 7½-year sukuk, or Islamic bond, on Wednesday but decided to forego the 12- and/or 30-year conventional bonds that were expected to price at the same time, according to market sources.

The new sukuk was launched to yield 6 7/8%, which was the tight end of guidance in the 7% area.

The fact that the conventional bonds were nixed was not overly surprising given that market volatility has cast a shadow of uncertainty over the whole market. But by all reports, Bahrain was expected to go ahead with the issuance this week in spite of market conditions and widening in its existing bonds after the new deals were announced last week.

“Clearly they got no real support for it,” a London-based trader said.

Elsewhere, Turkish mobile phone operator Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS announced that it selected banks and scheduled a roadshow for a dollar-denominated benchmark of 10-year bonds.

In Latin America, Vrio Corp., the Latin America-focused subsidiary of AT&T Inc., launched $1 billion of notes in two tranches despite some market uncertainty.

But there was no news on other deals on the calendar for Latin America including Gilex Holding Sarl which has a 94.7% stake in Colombia’s Banco GNB Sudameris, Barretos, Brazil-based food processor Minerva SA or Argentina’s Transportadora de Gas del Sur SA.

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