GarantiBank International closes syndicated deal

GarantiBank International (GBI) has closed a €225mn syndicated financing facility. The facility was increased from the original request for € 200mn following an oversubscription.

Bookrunners and mandated lead arrangers on the deal are The Bank of New York and BayernLB. The facility carries a maturity of 364 days. Repayment is due in bullet form upon maturity, and the purpose of the loan is to fund export finance contracts.

Co-arrangers were invited to commit € 5mn or more at a flat participation fee of 0.15%, while managers could commit € 2.5mn or more for a flat fee of 0.125%. The interest margin is Libor plus 0.30%.

Joining the facility as mandated lead arrangers are ABN Amro, The Bank of Nova Scotia, HSH Nordbank, ING Wholesale Banking, LRP Landesbank Rheinland-Pflaz, RZB, Unicredit Group, Wachovia Bank, WGZ Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, Masreqbank, Natixis and Standard Chartered Bank.

Co-arrangers are American Express Bank, BBVA, DZ Bank, China Exim, and JPMorgan Chase Bank. Citi and Salzburger Landes-Hypothekenbank are managers.

The signing of this facility follows the announcement that GBI's trade finance division closed in 2007 with US$7.75bn annual transaction origination volume, a 15% increase over the previous year.

Within that same timeframe, GBI supported 13mn tonnes of physical commodity trade. Included within this total business volume are transactional commodity finance loans, documentary credits and collections and structured products.

Transactional commodity finance loans and documentary credit and collections constitute 70% of the 2007 transaction volume.

The largest proportion of the total volume involves supporting emerging market local banks, mainly in the Black Sea, Caspian and Mediterranean basin countries, in the form of stand-by letters of credit, post or pre-shipment financing and syndications.

GBI is one of the five Dutch banks permitted accommodating internal risk-based approach under Basel II since January 2008, which means the bank can take enjoy a favourable regulatory capital framework and its advantages on its trade finance activities.