Kuwait Finance House: Global sukuk issuance hit $13.4bn in April

 Kuwait Finance House (KFH) announced Friday the globalprimary sukuk market has begun 2Q 2014 on a solid footing as the month of Aprilhas produced a new issuances volume of more than USD 13.4 billion, making it thebest performing month in 2014 year-to-date (YTD).The bank said in a statement that the new sukuk issuances volume in April 2014exceeds the previous YTD high of USD 11.2 bln in March by almost 20 percent. The month saw a welcoming return of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) sukukissuers who expanded their volume with issuances totalling more than USD four blnafter remaining largely absent in March when total GCC issuances amounted to lessthan USD 185 mln (excluding the Islamic Development Bank's USD 1.5 bln issuance), KFH added.Issuances by GCC based obligors helped shore up the share of corporate sukukswhich accounted for USD 2.4 bln of the total issuance volume in April, registering a65 percent increase compared to the USD 1.45 bln volume in March.However proportionately, the market continued to be heavily driven by thesovereign and quasi-sovereign issuers who collectively accounted for approximately82 percent of the issuance volume in April (Mar14: 87 percent). Overall, April 2014'svolume was the third most performing on a monthly basis over the last 12 months, it noted.Analysing YTD, 4M14's volume now amounts to USD 44.5 bln which is in fact 1.6percent higher than the USD 43.8 bln volume in 4M13. At such a rate, the prospectsare immensely bright and the global primary sukuk market is highly expected toonce again surpass the USD 100 bln mark in new sukuk issuances volume this year.