Emirates seeks $5 billion to fund this year's growth

Emirates Airline needs about $5 billion to pay for the new aircraft it needs in 2013 to meet its growth targets. According to Brian Jeffery, senior vice-president for corporate treasury, in an interview with Bloomberg yesterday, the money will be raised from “a mixture of all the sources we have considered in the past, so commercial bank, operating leases, some export credits,”
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The Dubai airline begins its fiscal year on April 1, and has already raised $1.75 billion from the sale of sukuk and bonds over the past two months. “Whether we do any more is not certain of course, but compared to the past few years, we have already started to do more capital markets transactions because of the conditions of the markets,” he told the agency.
Earlier this month the airline met with Citigroup Inc., Standard Chartered Plc (STAN), Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC (ADCB), Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank PJSC (ADIB), Dubai Islamic Bank PJSC (DIB) and Emirates NBD Capital Ltd. to arrange the meetings to grow the sukuk dollar deals.
According to Bloomberg, sales of Islamic bonds from Dubai have posted the best start to a year since 2006 as the government takes steps to form a global hub for Shariah-compliant finance in the emirate. Dubai-based issuers tripled Islamic bond sales last year to $4.6 billion as the city’s borrowing costs dropped twice as much as the global average for Shariah-compliant notes.
Emirates expects an 18 percent to 20 percent increase in sales this year, and a 12 percent increase in the number of passengers, as it expands its operations in Asia.
CEO Tim Clark has already said the airline needs more A380s to meet the demand.

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