Dubai returns to the fixed-income sphere for the first time in more than a year after raising about $2 billion from dirham and dollar-denominated Islamic bonds.

Confidence in the emirate had run aground earlier this year as investors bet on Dubai’s state-linked entities not being able refinance debt. So far, this year it has met all its obligations and with the fresh issue booking about $6.5 billion from regional and international investors, Dubai’s doomsday scenario appears to be vanishing. 

With much of the United Arab Emirates’ oil coming from the largest of the emirates Abu Dhabi, investors have flocked to the capital this year as appetite for good emerging market debt revives. The spread between Abui Dhabi and Dubai widened at its peak to over 500 basis points in February, but Dubai government efforts to restore confidence — kickstarted by the UAE central bank buying $10 billion of its bonds — has helped spreads narrow to about 200 basis points.

Dubai still has a long way go. The next test will be property developer Nakheel resolving its $3.5 billion Islamic bond maturing on Dec. 14 and then a raft of debts in 2010…..but as Harold Wilson once said, ”A week’s long time in politics.”  

Coming out of one of the darkest recessions, have we learned the lesson at all? Or are we going to repeat the mistakes of the past again?

Khuram Maqsood, managing director of boutique corporate financing advisory firm Emirates Capital, thinks we may well repeat them.

He says a second wave in the downturn – if it comes at all – is unlikely to come from a new, unseen fault in world markets.

“The second wave’s going to come from exactly the same place the first wave came from –which is short attention spans, short memories,” he tells Reuters Investment summit in Dubai.

“Even in 2009 you’re beginning to see some of the issues that brought the global economy to its knees creeping up again, like executive pay for example.

“Again we’re beginning to see too much leverage seeping into different parts of the global economy, so it seems there are similar things which encroach back into the playing field and I think that’s the risk.”

Socially responsible investing, which takes into account social, environmental and governance risks, is arguably still in its infancy in the Gulf, where the enormous wealth created by hydrocarbons sometimes flows into extravagant projects like an indoor ski resort.

But Mustafa Abdel-Wadood, managing director of Abraaj Capital – the Middle East’s biggest private equity firm — sees SRI as enlightened self interest and the firm puts its own money where its mouth is.

Fred Sicre, executive director of Abraaj, told us the firm — which signs up to United Nations Principles for Responsible Investing (UNPRI) — has a 5+5+5 plan, where it encourages employees to donate 5% of bonuses to a charitable pool, 5 days for community/charitable work and the firm itself gives 5% of net revenues to a charity. Sicre himself taught at the first class yesterday on entrepreneureship.

“When we invest for pure business reasons into an education business or a hospital group, in a certain sense, we are looking at this also from a sustainable investment (point of view) for this region because the competitiveness of a country is directly linked to the health of the population,” Sicre says.

“We feel we have great opportunities and responsibilities to bring portfolio companies to adhere to sustainble investment practices, whether its security or health standards… It’s just about being good human beings and doing good practical businesses.”

Watch a clip below for Sicre talking about this 5+5+5 plan.

Gulf Arab states have awed the West with six years of breakneck growth fueled by record oil prices and a real estate boom.

But what does the future hold? Will it be just a mirage of prosperity in the desert? Or, will the region, rich in oil, adapt to the future? Speaker: Timothy Fox Chief Economist, Emirates NBD Presenter: Martina Fuchs Dubai.

   Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital was a big backer of Moscow’s ambition to become a major emerging-markets financial centre, a bridge between European and Asian capital, a rival to Dubai.

    It not only trumpeted the idea, but was one of the first big local firms to take out offices in a sleek glass skyscraper by the Moscow River, surrounded by foundation pits and towers of naked steel girders that were to become Moscow’s Canary Wharf.

This week we had the opportunity to speak with Mohsin Khan, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the former head of the Middle East department at the International Monetary Fund, ahead of the 2009 Reuters Islamic Banking and Finance Summit. I asked him why he thought that the once red-hot market for Islamic bonds had slowed to a trickle. Khan says some of the largest issuers of Islamic bonds, or sukuk, were real estate developers and the reason corporations are reluctant to buy or issue sukuk these days is due in large part to the continuing decline in the value of real estate in Dubai. Click below to listen:
Kahn on sukuk issues from Reuters TV on Vimeo.

Mohsin Khan, former head of the Middle East department at the International Monetary Fund, says the Islamic banking industry could benefit from consolidation by reducing the number of sharia boards, or groups of Islamic scholars, that each bank employs in the Middle East to decide whether or not investments comply with Islamic law. I spoke with Khan earlier this week ahead of the 2009 Reuters Islamic Banking and Finance Summit that kicks-off on April 13th in Dubai, Bahrain, Kuala Lumpur and London. Click here to listen:
Kahn on consolidation from Reuters TV on Vimeo.

The days of Tom, Dick and Harry taking a shotgun in Dubai and shooting willy-nilly and renting a ballroom with big parties and all of it bearing fruit are over.

Got it? No? Here’s a translation:

Everyone considered themselves a developer amid Dubai’s property boom but the global credit crunch has put paid to the days when all you had to do was make a splashy announcement, draw in tons of money and flip a project as soon as it’s built.

Now, only those developers with long-term focus and relatively debt-free balance sheets will survive the tumult while small fry will have to pack up and leave, according to developers at the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit.

“I think right now it’s a very much more targetted approach,” said Markus Giebel, chief executive of Dubai developer, Deyaar. “Before you had a shotgun…people shoot and whether its hotels, residentials or offices everything bears the fruits. These times have now gone. We have to go back to basics.”

Or, as the executive chairman of Zabeel Investments put it: “”Let’s face it every Tom, Dick and Harry became a developer. Now is the time when you differentiate the men from the boys.”

Or the women from the girls but what’s really important is that there’s no room for small fish when big possums are on the prowl. Get that? No? OK, here’s a translation…

Pakistan’s foreign reserves are dwindling fast and many worry about the country descending into chaos.
But Naser Al-Marri, managing director of Noor Financial Investment Co. is taking a longer view of the country.
“I love Pakistan,” he told a Reuters summit. “For me Pakistan is a mini-China.”
The country’s potential lies in its agricultural resources and its potential as a bridge for ferrying energy into fast-growing China.
Marri’s Noor, a major shareholder in Karachi Electric Supply Company, urged Gulf Arab desert countries to invest more in growing crops in Pakistan. Gas could also flow from the Gulf to China through Pakistan, he said.
As Pakistani president Asif Zardari visits Saudi Arabia seeking aid, he would be heartened by some long-term optimism.
“Many people don’t like Pakistan, but I am sure in five years, Pakistan will be the place to be,” Marri said.

A Barack Obama victory in the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday could bring much-needed good news to the Gulf Arab region, the chairman of Kuwait’s banking association told a Reuters summit.
Gulf Arab stock exchanges have tumbled this year and its economies are forecast to slow as the price of oil, its main export, drops.
The prospect of conflict involving nearby Iran is often cited as a risk factor for investing in the oil-exporting region.
“Maybe the pressure that is on this region in terms of U.S.-Iran tension might ease up,” said Abdulmajeed al-Shatti, who is also chairman of Commercial Bank of Kuwait, the chairman country’s third-largest lender. “Obama has indicated he would engage Iran and if the U.S. wants to change Iran, it has to engage.”