Supply chain manager Noble Group is looking to tap the global syndication market for US$2.25bn in committed unsecured revolving loan facilities.

The two facilities consist of a US$1.575bn three-year revolving loan and a US$675mn one-year revolver.

The money will be used to refinance part of the groups’ existing debt from 2010’s US$2.54bn revolving facilities, and for general corporate purposes.

A total of 16 banks are signed up as bookrunners and mandated lead arrangers, including ABN Amro, Banco do Brasil, Bank of America, BTMU, Citi, Commerzbank, DBS, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ING, JP Morgan, Natixis, Rabobank, RBS, Société Générale and Standard Chartered.

Syndication was launched into the general market on Tuesday, May 24 and will be presented in meetings to banks in London, Singapore and Hong Kong over the coming weeks.

GTR speaks to Peter Pang, vice-president of the Asia loan syndicate team at RBS: “It is too early to tell how the deal will be taken up, but judging from precedence we have every confidence that this deal will be very well received by the banking community; one just has to look at the strength of the MLAs.”

The groups’ 2010 facilities saw 76 banks participate.

“We expect this year to be more,” Pang explains. “The syndication has gone out to banks in different locations where Noble has its business, which is all over the world.”

Noble’s 2009 facilities were priced at 135 basis points and 250bps for the one and three-year facilities respectively.

Pang would not comment on the pricing of the new loans but did reveal that it would be “slightly cheaper than last year.”