Among the available liquidity management instruments in Islamic banking, only sukuk of a particular type meet the requirements of HQLA (in principle) as defined by the Basel Committee and adapted for Islamic finance by the IFSB (Islamic Financial Services Board) (IFSB, 2017). Candidates for HQLA are only international sukuk, i.e. sukuk that are issued in an international currency, sukuk that are also publicly listed, and sukuk that are traded not only locally but also internationally. Sovereigns and international institutions such as the IDB (Islamic Development Bank) have issued almost all sukuk of this caliber. In this PhD thesis, the research will make empirically informed qualitative projections on the outlook for HQL (high quality liquid) sukuk to constitute the LAB (liquid asset buffer) portfolio for an Islamic megabank MDB (multilateral development bank) in the context of a rising global interest rate environment, falling oil prices, and a challenging global environment. Further qualitative projections about the prospects for the sukuk market are made based on a few case studies that encapsulate some of the critical limitation facing the sukuk market.

This research investigates the determinants of Malaysian Sukuk’ credit rating by studying firm financial characteristic, corporate governance attributes, macroeconomic factors, and Sukuk structures. The sukuk structures determinants examine during the pre- and post-Shariah governance reform period (SG2010) to ascertain the effectiveness of the governance reform. Lastly, this research investigates the wealth effects of change in Sukuk ratings (upgrading or downgrading). Both listed and unlisted firms are analysed, with total 328 sukuk issuances and 1110 sukuk rating announcements from 2009 to 2014. Ordered logit regression and generalized ordered logit regression are used to explain the impact of different determinants on sukuk credit rating. Event study methodology was applied to ascertain the wealth effect of 16 sukuk upgrade and 20 sukuk downgrade announcements. The results on determinants of sukuk credit ratings indicate that a positive sukuk credit rating is associated with financial information, governance attributes, and sukuk structure whilst the macroeconomic factors did not influence sukuk credit ratings. More precisely, firm size, profitability, and leverage had significant positive effect on sukuk credit rating for listed firms whilst only firm profitability had a positive effect on sukuk credit rating for unlisted firms.

This thesis evaluates the wealth effects of corporate Sukuk issuances, based on specific sample traits, for the three largest issuing countries: Malaysia, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. The sample traits include underlying structure, size of issuance and tenor. Previous studies are inconclusive and relate mainly to Malaysian firms only. This could be attributed to the failure to incorporate the effects of Sukuk types, properly identified crisis period effects and market differences. Bai-Perron (2003) break-point analysis is used to correctly identify the crisis periods for the sample. Event study methodology is applied to ascertain market reaction to announcements for a 51-day announcement window: (-40, +10). The cumulative average abnormal returns were estimated after adjustment for non-synchronous trading using the Scholes and Williams (1977) technique and cross-correlation using the Kolari-Pynnonen (2010) method. Similar break-points were observed for Malaysia and Indonesia, whereas Saudi Arabia had delayed and sustained contagion effects. For wealth effects, the results imply that sample traits affect market reaction significantly. The Malaysian market reacts positively to debt-based issuances before and after the crisis. Reaction to equity-based issuances is significantly negative after the crisis. Reaction is positive for larger issuances and shorter tenors. The Indonesian market reacts positively to debt-based issuances during the crisis period. This can be attributed to high issuer ratings, small issuance size, short tenors and high demand. Saudi market reaction is negative post-crisis, similar to the market reaction to convertible bond announcements as documented in the literature.

Although sukuk has been dominating the Malaysian capital market, the motivations of the firms issuing sukuk or conventional bonds remained largely unexplored. Using the partial adjustment model, we make the initial attempt, to test a firm's target debt optimizing behavior and secondly, to find the firm specific determinants of target debt ratio using a sukuk or conventional bond issuance 3 dataset. Our sample consists of 120 conventional bonds and 80 sukuk issuers from 2000 to 2012. We employ two recent dynamic panel data estimators, 4 which resulted in three major findings. Firstly, our results provide stronger support for trade-off view based on a firm's optimizing behavior among sukuk and conventional bond issuers, however with different issuance motives. Secondly, issuers of partnership-based sukuk and convertible bonds closely follow the pecking order view, in which the former is chosen based on firms facing a higher information asymmetry cost. Finally, while both exchange-based sukuk and straight bond issuers align towards a particular target, only firms with higher sales growth prefer the former. Reinforced by industry insights, our findings evidence that the sukuk offers bring unique “benefits” to corporate issuers unlike those of the conventional bonds.