Initial mandated lead arranger VTB Bank and a consortium of lenders have closed an oversubscribed US$59.5mn loan facility for the Belarusian Bank for Development and Reconstruction (Belinvestbank).
The syndicated facility, which was oversubscribed by more than US$30mn, is split between a 12 and six month tranche, with the funds due to finance export-import contracts of Belinvestbank’s major customers.
Although there is a low appetite for syndicated deals in the current market, securing this facility was not especially challenging, as Andrei Dzhumkov, head of financial institutions at Belinvestbank, explains to GTR: “[Securing the facility] was not a difficult process for us, Russian banks are all very interested in finding any market which is quite comfortable with trade finance and which can return finance without any problem.
“Decreasing the price of the syndicated loan brought in smaller banks who expected extremely high pricing, which made it easier for us. We were expected to do a smaller club deal of maybe US$25mn and we oversubscribed more than double.”
The following banks have also joined the facility as lead arrangers:
Bank of Khanty-Mansiysk,
FBN Bank (UK),
JSC Globex Commercial Bank,
Bank of Moscow,
Investtradebank.
And as co-arrangers:
Atlantic Forfaitierungs,
Banque de Commerce et de Placements,
Credit Europe Bank,
London Forfaiting Company.
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