FAB raises $700M from five-year sukuk as orders top $1.5B
What's the deal? First Abu Dhabi BankDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → (FAB), the UAE's largest lender, has priced a $700M five-year benchmark sukuk — an Islamic bond — after attracting an orderbook exceeding $1.5B, more than double the issuance size.
The strong demand signals robust investor appetite for Gulf-issued Islamic debt instruments.
Why now? Gulf banks have been tapping international debt markets aggressively in 2025 as they seek to diversify funding sources and capitalise on favourable conditions. The sukuk market has seen a surge in issuance as global demand for Sharia-compliant financial products continues to grow.
What could go wrong? Rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East or a shift in global interest rate expectations could dampen future issuance windows. Overreliance on wholesale funding markets also carries refinancing risk if conditions tighten.
The signal: FAB's 2x-plus oversubscription reflects a broader trend of Gulf sovereign and quasi-sovereign issuers commanding premium demand in Islamic debt markets. With Dealroom still classifying FAB — a bank with over $300B in assets — as "early growth," the data gap itself highlights how traditional financial giants in the Gulf remain undertracked by the tech-centric venture ecosystem, even as they drive some of the region's largest capital markets transactions.
Read more: zawya.com
