Saudi Real Estate Refinance Co. issues $200 mln sukuk

Government-owned Saudi Real Estate Refinance Co. (SRC) said on Wednesday it had completed a 750 million riyal ($200 million) sukuk issue with multiple tenors, the first transaction by a non-sovereign issuer in Saudi Arabia in 2019.

The issuance comes under a program SRC established in December that allows it to issue up to 11 billion riyals of local currency-denominated Islamic bonds.

SRC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund (PIF), aims to accelerate housing construction by injecting liquidity into the real estate market.

Its target is to eventually refinance 20 percent of Saudi Arabia’s primary home loans market, which authorities hope to expand to 500 billion riyals by 2020 and 800 billion riyals by 2028. Real estate financing hit 4.7 billion riyals in January.

The company mandated HSBC Saudi Arabia as sole lead manager and bookrunner of the sukuk program.

The program may help the company become a major issuer in Saudi Arabia’s domestic bond market. Increasing activity in that market is another goal of economic reforms.

Saudi Arabia’s housing minister said last week he expected investments in the real estate financing sector to reach between 60 billion riyals and 80 billion riyals in 2019.