Sole bookrunner and mandated lead arranger Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has signed a US$180mn pre-financing facility for a privately-owned Chinese trading company Qinghai Liuyang Xinda Non-ferrous Metal (XDM).
The facility carries a three-year tenor and was oversubscribed from US$1590mn to US$180mn, syndicated out to a few selected leading commodity banks including HSH Nordbank, KBC, Natixis, Rabobank and Soci&eaute;té Générale
According to the terms of the deal, Bank of China, Qinghai branch, will be the 'escrow' bank, acting as a neutral third party looking after the funds deposited in its accounts pending the approval of all the conditions of the transaction. Sempra Metals is arranging the hedging of the aluminium ingots at the London Metals Exchange (LME).
"This deal involved complex trade finance structures with offshore US dollar funding to a leading Chinese private trading company. We are confident that our global commodity expertise combined with our understanding of the local Chinese loan market positions us well in developing innovative structured trade finance products and services to match the increasing demands of our clients,” comments Michael Chen, head of structured trade finance, RBS Asia Pacific.
XDM is an alumina and aluminium trading company based in China and is wholly owned by Beijing Xinheng Group, and Far East Alumina, one of the largest privately-owned aluminium firms in China.
Last Updated March 07, 2008
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