Best Domestic Market Sukuk House 2005

It was announced today that Liquidity Management Centre (LMC) has been awarded the Best Domestic Market Sukuk House 2005 at the EUROMONEY Islamic Finance Awards, held in London on the 22nd of February 2005 in conjunction with Euromoney’s Fourth Islamic Finance Summit.

This global Islamic finance event was attended by CEO’s and Managing Directors from numerous leading Islamic financial Institutions throughout the GCC, Europe, North America and South East Asia. Each year Euromoney gathers together prominent figures from the world of Islamic banking to recognise companies that have made a significant contribution to the growth of the industry.

LMC’s Chairman, Mr. Aref A. Kooheji, said: “We are very encouraged by this Euromoney Award as it recognises the effort that LMC has put into creating and developing a vibrant domestic Islamic capital market. The continued development of the Islamic capital market is a necessary precursor to the growth of the broader Islamic financial industry in which we participate.”

Mr. Ahmed Abbas, Chief Executive Officer of LMC who was in London to receive this honour, said: “I am extremely pleased to accept this award, which serves as recognition of our acheivement and highlights the efforts of the LMC team over the past year. We have a dedicated, technically knowledgeable and client focussed organisation, which is continually striving to play its role in developing the Islamic Financial market. With this milestone, we move forward with even stronger commitment and dedication to achieving excellence and will continue to maintain the highest standards of technical product development and client transactional service. In doing so, we would like to recognise the ongoing support provided by our Chairman, our Board of Directors and our Shareholders, without whose respective contributions this achievement would not have been possible.”

LMC has arranged and placed a number of high-profile Sukuk over the past twelve months with an approximate cumulative issue size of US$565 million.

Additionally, LMC administrates an expanding secured Short-Term Sukuk Investment programme and expects to be issuing further high profile Sukuks in the first half of 2005 whilst continuing to work on other Islamic Financing projects.

About Liquidity Management Centre:

LMC was established in July 2002 under the auspices of a Bahrain Monetary Agency initiative. It is a Bahraini Joint Stock Company with an Islamic Investment Banking License. It was established to enable Islamic financial institutions to manage their liquidity through short and medium term liquid investments compliant with Shari’ah guidelines. As part of executing this mandate LMC is an active player in the primary Sukuk (Islamic Financing) market and also in the establishment of a secondary market for short term Islamically compliant treasury products across the GCC region. LMC also has the capability to arrange Islamic investment instruments of varying risk and return profiles at different tenors.

LMC is owned and strongly supported by four leading Islamic institutions in equal shares of 25%, namely: Bahrain Islamic Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, Islamic Development Bank and Kuwait Finance House (Kuwait). Mr. Aref A. Kooheji is the current LMC Chairman and represents Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) on the LMC Board.

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