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AMJ acted as sole Oman law counsel for the Government of Oman and its wholly owned special purpose vehicle, Oman Sovereign Sukuk S.A.O.C., as well as the joint lead managers, Alizz Islamic Bank S.A.O.G., bank muscat S.A.O.G. (including its Islamic window, Meethaq) and Bank Nizwa S.A.O.G., on the on establishment of the government’s first-ever Omani Rial denominated sukuk issuance programme. The establishment of the programme follows the success of the international sukuk programme back in 2017, which AMJ also advised the government.

In addition to advising on establishment of the sukuk programme, AMJ also advised as sole Oman law counsel to the issuer and the banks on the first two tranches of OMR 300,000,000 sukuk under the programme. The first tranche of OMR 100,000,000 sukuk was with a tenure of five years and offering a return of 5 per cent per annum. The second tranche was OMR 200,000,000 sukuk with a tenure of seven years and a return of 5.50 per cent per annum. The issuance closed on 10 December 2019 and has been listed on the Muscat Securities Market.

Amongst the various firsts, this was the first time that a sovereign issuance has been undertaken through an auction process and allocations made through a ‘differential pricing mechanism’. As a result, the subscription process had to be carefully considered to allow allocations through the mechanism preferred by the Government.

The AMJ team, which acted as sole Oman law advisor on this transaction, was led by Mansoor Malik (Senior Partner) and Asad Qayyum (Partner) who were supported by Fatma Al Maamary (Associate) and Khalid Al Abri (Associate). Linklaters acted as international counsel on the transaction.