KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 11): The International Islamic Liquidity Management Corp (IILM) said it has successfully conducted an auction for the issuance of US$1.06 billion short-term A-1-rated sukuk.

The sukuk was oversubscribed by 0.62 times with an order book that closed in excess of US$1.72 billion, IILM said in a statement today.

The tender had significant demand from Middle Eastern, Asian and African investors, added the corporation, which was formed by several central banks, monetary authorities and multilateral organisations to develop and issue short-term shariah-compliant financial instruments to facilitate effective cross-border liquidity management for institutions that offer Islamic financial services.

IILM said the sukuk was issued in three series, namely US$400 million one-month tenure at 0.33%, US$460 million three-month tenure at 0.45%, and US$200 million of seven-month tenure at 0.58%.

"The final profit rates lie within the indicative pricing guidance across all the tenors issued today, including the inaugural seven-month tenure issued.

"This demonstrates the sound and continuing interest from primary dealers and investors, following the upsize of the asset portfolio that reached the full capacity of the US$3 billion programme size earlier in late July," it said.

IILM said it has achieved a total cumulative issuance amount of US$7.5 billion year-to-date, which represents around 30% of the greenback-denominated sukuk year-to-date globally.

It added that it will continue to issue its sukuk regularly to meet the market demand and liquidity needs of institutions offering Islamic financial services.

Established in 2010, IILM is hosted by Malaysia and headquartered in Kuala Lumpur.

The members of the IILM governing board are the central banks and monetary agencies of Indonesia, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Qatar, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, as well as the multilateral Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector.