NOGA takes a big step
Manama : nogaholding, the investment and development arm of Bahrain’s National Oil and Gas Authority (NOGA), yesterday celebrated its inaugural issuance into the international debt market under its newly established Global medium-term note programme.
“The programme which raised a capital of $1 billion in its initial transaction was the largest corporate issuance within the region,” said Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, the Minister of Oil and & Chairman of nogaholding.
The US$1 billion noted, with a maturity date of 2027, was rated at the sovereign level and substantially oversubscribed with the order book reaching US$3.8 billion.
“Indeed, it was the largest corporate issuance within our region this year,” the Minister said adding: “As such, it serves as a strong vote of confidence in the management, strategy and direction of Nogaholding and the Kingdom of Bahrain.”
With a broad participation by institutional investors around the world, the issuance also marks the beginning of new relationships for nogaholding with some of the largest and most sophisticated fund managers globally.
nogaholding is 100 per cent owned by the Government of Bahrain and plays a fundamental role in the execution of the Kingdom of Bahrain’s policy in the oil and gas sector and stewardship of the Kingdom of Bahrain’s investment in oil, gas and petrochemical assets.
“The debt raised from this, and future issuances, will be an important tool in enabling nogaholding to deliver on its stated objectives of developing commercially attractive projects across the oil and gas value chain, to the benefit of the people of the Kingdom of Bahrain,” the Minister said. “The issuance comes at an inflection point for our company, as its rate of growth both in terms of investment and profitability accelerates with a number of important projects now underway.”
The nogaholding team, Shaikh Mohammed said, led by Qaisar Zaman and assisted by Hassan Al Alawi worked tirelessly for many months to make this concept a reality.
On Bapco Modernization programme, the minister said that it is “progressing well”. “We are pleased to confirm the continued strong progress of this commercially attractive and strategically important project, and we remain on course to take final investment decision in 2018,” he added.
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