Burjeel Holdings PLC has become the first UAE healthcare company to return to the sukuk market since 2018, and Clifford Chance sits at the centre of that reappearance. Burjeel operates a network of hospitals and healthcare facilities across the GCC, and the debut issuance marks its first move into public debt capital markets since listing.
The Dubai-listed group’s debut issuance follows its 2022 admission to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and precedes what the firm describes as a platform for repeat Shari’a-compliant fundraising across the GCC healthcare sector.
Clifford Chance advised Burjeel on establishing a US$1.5 billion sukuk programme and on the pricing of an inaugural US$500 million senior unsecured sukuk under that programme.
The debut instrument was backed by a pool of medical equipment assets, and the programme documentation was structured to permit future issuances secured against healthcare real estate, medical equipment, or a combination of both.
Qudeer Latif, the firm’s head of global Islamic finance, led the transaction from Dubai alongside senior associate Pearl Mahaga, with support from associates Trey Oxendine in London and Marya Manna in Dubai, and trainee Ali Gorji.
The debut sukuk drew an orderbook above US$1.4 billion, with international investors taking most of the allocation. Other GCC corporates now have a live benchmark for what a first sukuk can attract against conventional bank debt, and the deal underscores Islamic capital markets as a strategic funding source for regional corporates looking beyond the conventional banking sector.
In-house counsel at GCC healthcare and infrastructure groups should look past the headline figure to the asset classes underpinning this structure. Burjeel’s documentation lets the programme draw against medical equipment in one issuance and healthcare real estate in the next, without renegotiating the Shari’a-compliant structure between drawdowns.
Counsel on a first sukuk need to check how the asset-backed programme is certified, and what issuers must stand behind as the collateral mix shifts between drawdowns.
Clifford Chance’s staffing on this mandate, with Qudeer Latif leading from Dubai and Trey Oxendine supporting from London, sets the model that other firms advising healthcare, real estate or infrastructure clients on debut sukuk will need to match and price into their own mandates.
Burjeel has drawn only US$500 million of its US$1.5 billion programme, leaving open how quickly the company returns to market and against which asset pool. Clifford Chance’s mandate on the programme’s establishment gives it a continuing role in whatever answer emerges next.