South Africa’s First Rand Bank has signed a new US$540mn dual-tenor syndicated term loan facility. The facility, which was launched at US$250mn and targeted at Chinese and Taiwanese institutions, was heavily oversubscribed, reflecting the strength of the bank’s counterparty status in key Asian markets.

The bank tells GTR that the financing will be used for general corporate purposes, which will include trade finance.

The facility is split into two US dollar tranches: a two-year tranche, priced at 125 basis points (bps) a year, and a three-year tranche, priced at 150bps.

Commenting on the deal, Andries du Toit, First Rand Group treasurer says: “This transaction in an important international funding market reflects First Rand’s overall objective to fund its activities in a diversified, efficient and flexible manner, underpinned by strong counterparty relationships. The tenors and efficient pricing of the facility also support First Rand’s funding and liquidity management objectives.”

Standard Chartered acted as sole co-ordinator, initial mandated lead arranger and bookrunner, documentation bank and facility agent.

The full list of participants is as follows:

Mandated lead arrangers:

China Construction Bank, Johannesburg branch

Bank of China, Johannesburg branch

Export-Import Bank of China, Shanghai branch

ICBC, London

 

Lead arranger:

Taiwan Cooperative Bank

 

Arranger:

Bank of Taiwan, London branch