DUBAI, May 23 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's National
Industrialization Co (Tasnee) has priced a 2 billion
riyals ($533.3 million) Islamic bond, or sukuk, the first time
the petrochemicals firm has tapped the bond markets.
The privately-placed, seven-year transaction was issued at
par and carried a profit rate of 105 basis points over the
six-month Saudi Interbank Offered Rate, a document from HSBC's
Saudi Arabian unit, which arranged the deal, said.
The issue attracted an order book of 5.2 billion riyals and
was sold to government institutions, insurance companies,
investment funds and banks, a Tasnee bourse filing said late on
Tuesday.
Tasnee announced at the beginning of May it would meet
investors ahead of a potential issue.
A number of Saudi entities have priced their first local
currency sukuk this year as interest in the country's debt
market grows on the back of high investor liquidity and a desire
to diversify funding sources away from bank loans.
The largest of these was a 15-billion riyals ($4 billion)
issue from the General Authority for Civil Aviation (GACA) in
January.
Diary firm Almarai Co and AJIL Financial Services
Company completed deals worth 1 billion riyals and 500 million
riyals in March and April, respectively.
($1 = 3.7503 Saudi riyals)
(Reporting by David French; Editing by Dinesh Nair)