The Islamic Development Bank prices a second billion-and-a-half sukuk on ordinary terms

On 2 September the Islamic Development Bank priced US$1.5 billion of five-year trust certificates, its second benchmark sukuk of 2026, under its US$25 billion Trust Certificate Issuance Programme. The transaction closed at 48 basis points over SOFR mid-swaps, two basis points inside initial guidance, at par, with a 4.781 per cent profit rate paid semi-annually. Demand was heavy from the open: indications passed US$2 billion at the start of the day and the order book cleared US$2.75 billion by midday London time, ahead of the bank's own previous high of US$2.65 billion set in May. The bank is rated Aaa/AAA/AAA by Moody's, S&P and Fitch, all with stable outlook, and proceeds fund development projects across its member countries. The detail worth holding onto is the pricing, not the size. Forty-eight basis points over swaps is a spread a conventional triple-A multilateral would recognise as unremarkable, which is the point: Shariah-compliant paper is being bought on ordinary credit terms by ordinary institutional buyers, not at a premium extracted for novelty. That is what a market looks like once it has stopped being a category. The second issuance of a year matters more than the first, because repetition is what turns an instrument into infrastructure.

This is a QeRN summary by Ahmed Qerni. Read the original at Islamic Development Bank: https://www.isdb.org/news/isdb-prices-us-15-billion-sukuk-its-second-of-the-year.