GE Capital, the finance arm of General Electric, has listed a recently completed $500 million sukuk (Islamic bond) on Nasdaq Dubai.

The sukuk was the first to be issued by a major US company and was sold to investors across the Middle East, Asia and Europe on November 27.

'We continually strive to diversify our funding base. The sukuk platform helps complement and solidify GE’s growing presence in the region and allows us to attract incremental liquidity from Islamic investors,” said Aris Kekedjian, president and CEO, GE Capital Middle East & Africa Ltd.

Nasdaq Dubai now has 22 listed sukuk with a nominal value of $17.2 billion. Other issuers on the exchange are based in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and the UAE.

'The listing of this sukuk by one of the most prominent companies in the world is an important step in the growth of Nasdaq Dubai as a centre of the global Islamic finance industry. Sukuk have become an increasingly significant segment of global financial services, serving a widening base of issuers and investors,” added Jeff Singer, chief executive of Nasdaq Dubai.

GE Capital’s five-year, fixed-rate dollar-denominated sukuk is an Ijara based structure and was issued through GE Capital Sukuk Ltd, a subsidiary of GE Capital. The assets underlying the sukuk are interests in a portfolio of aircraft and rental payments from the lease of such aircraft.-TradeArabia News Service