Emirates NBD is testing appetite for an AT1, but Burjeel thinks investors are asking too much

It ain’t fun out there, but there are fresh signs that markets are slowly returning to life despite regional uncertainty. The latest: One of the UAE’s largest banks is out to raise capital — but a healthcare giant isn’t willing to pay the premium investors are demanding.

GO? Emirates NBD is testing the AT1 market with aUSD 750 mn perpetual non-callsix-yearissuance at initial price guidance of around 6.75% — the first AT1 sale by a regional lender since the war began. All the big names are on as bookrunners: ADCB, ENBD Capital, FAB, HSBC, Barclays, Citi, JP Morgan. The AT1 follows a USD 2.25 bn syndicated facility at record-tight pricing, a USD 325 mn private placement, a EUR 500 mn green bond and a USD 1 bn blue-green bond — all this year.

ENBD is building war-chest liquidity ahead of itsUSD 3 bn acquisition of RBL Bank in India. If the order book covers, every other regional bank with Tier-1 plans gets a benchmark to follow. ADCB, FAB, and DIB will be watching.

NO GO? Read this against ADX-listed healthcare outfit Burjeel Holdings putting on hold a planned USD 1.5 bn Islamic bond issuance, as we note above in this morning’s Scorecard. The company’s CEO noted simply that “spreads have changed.”

Uh, Enterprise? I’m a normal, not a finance nerd like you guys. What’s an AT-1? An AT-1 is banker-speak for “additional tier-1 capital.” Banks raise them through AT-1 bonds to strengthen their capital base under global banking rules known as Basel III. The bank is basically to take on capital that it will only use if the bank’s capital falls below a specific threshold in a period of financial distress. AT-1s are standard instruments for UAE banks.

Citadel is setting up shop in DIFC: The hedge fund got the regulatory greenlight to beginoperating from the DIFC, with fixed income and macro teams setting up first. The USD 67 bn AUM outfit is probably the most consequential opening in DIFC history — all the more significant that it’s launching here during the war.

PIF-owned SRCsigned a SAR 3 bn agreement to buy a residential mortgage portfolio from AlRajhi Bank — taking old paper off the bank’s books to free origination capacity for fresh deals.

SOUND SMART- SRC is doing what Fannie Mae does in the US. The move comes as Vision 2030 calls for more and more Saudis to own homes — and as more and more pundits raise questions about the crowding-out of the private sector from the banking system amid a boom in borrowing to back state projects.

GCC-based crypto brokerage Rain Financialacquired Saudi-based fintech-media outfitDigital Ma’arefa. Neither side disclosed the value of the transaction, which looks a lot like the type of Robinhood / Stocktwits model that has been successful with brokerage and crypto in the West.

XRG, Adnoc’s overseas investment arm, has29 US natural gas deals under review — controlled buys, drilling JVs, and minority stakes spanning production, pipelines, processing, liquefaction, and regas. CIO Nameer Siddiqui says the total cost of the program will be in the “tens of billions” against XRG’s now-USD 151 bn enterprise value.

SOUND SMART- The asymmetry is the trade: US banks are stepping back from LNG financing on oversupply concerns, leaving a vacuum that a deep-pocketed sovereign-backed buyer can walk into without a bidding war. This is what XRG was built for. Watch how many of those 29 deals get announced in 2H.

IPO WATCH- Endeavor and SVCfound that 77%| of 30 prominent Saudi founders they surveyed are actively exploring an IPO, with Tadawul as the venue of choice. Most are going to have to do a lot of work on governance and reporting before they can start thinking about life as public companies: Founders surveyed admit their corporate structure isn’t anywhere near listing-grade, and over 80% of local venture capital is deployed at the early stage with a Series A+ vacuum.

Foreign appetite for good yield is high: Egypt raised USD 1 bn through a three-tranchereopening of existing notes on the LSE at yields ranging from 7.60% to 9.45%. The Madbouly government opted for taps over a fresh issuance, building benchmark size while sidestepping the execution risk of a full new deal amid the ongoing war in the region. Proceeds went to repaying a EUR 1 bn April Eurobond maturity without dipping into FX reserves.

ALSO WORTH KNOWING TODAY-

Jamjoom Pharmasigned an agreement to acquire Pfizer Saudi’s oral-solid-dosage manufacturing facility in King Abdullah Economic City. Neither party disclosed the value of the transaction.

An Adia subsidiaryjoined a fresh capital raise for TeraHop, the Singapore- and Thailand-based supplier of high-speed optical transceivers used in data centers.

UAE-based Alpha Smartinked a USD 100 mn integrated industrial complex deal with SCZone — 500k sqm at Ain Sokhna across two phases, expected to attract another USD 150 mn in industrial investment.

EGX-listed CIRA Education tells our Egypt desk it’s going to be pursuing M&A and more growth in the West. CEO Mohamed El Kalla spoke after the company reported that normalized 1H FY 2025-26 net income jumped 67% y-o-y to EGP 678.3 mn.

Hazem Moussais stepping down as chairman of EGX-listed Contact Financial Holding after 25 years. Moussa helped invent consumer credit and securitization in Egypt and is “moving on to new ventures.” A name to watch.

Market Snapshot

Tadawul 0.10% • ADX 0.08% • DFM -0.22% • EGX30 -0.93%

Brent USD 111.26 / bbl • Gold USD 4,611 / oz • USD / SAR 3.75 • USD / EGP 52.98