Gulf International Bank leads Barwa Real Estate's USD600 million syndicated Murabaha Financing Facility

The Facility was initially launched at US$500 million. Due to a very positive market, the deal was oversubscribed with commitments of US$ 725 million being received. Barwa has decided to retain a part of the oversubscription by increasing the size of the Facility to US$600 million.

The following Banks have joined the Facility apart from GIB:

Mandated Lead Arrangers
•ABC Islamic Bank E.C.
•First Gulf Bank pjsc
•Islamic Bank of Asia/DBS Bank Ltd
•Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich Aktiengesellschaft
•Samba Financial Group

Lead Arrangers
•Arab Bank plc
•Malayan Banking Berhad

Arranger
•British Arab Commercial Bank Limited

Barwa Real Estate Company is one of the largest publicly listed real estate developers in Qatar and the region. Barwa is also among the region's top 20 real estate developers with assets of Qatari Rial 11.4 billion as at 30/6/2007 (US$ 3.13 billion) which figure is projected to reach Qatari Rial 13 billion (US$ 3.6 billion) by the end of 2007.

Barwa was created by the government owned Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company with ownership of 45%, in 2005 to concentrate on building residential and tourism developments locally and abroad, pursue opportunities for direct investment in real estate regionally and internationally and ally with strategic investors to ascertain and realize the strategic objectives of the company through Special Purpose Vehicles and Joint Ventures.