Philippine geothermal firm Energy Development Corp (EDC) has closed an oversubscribed six-year US$175mn syndicated loan facility with seven banks.

The mandated arrangers of the deal were ANZ, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Chinatrust Commercial Bank, ING, Maybank, Mizuho Corporate Banking, and Standard Chartered.

ANZ acted as sole coordinator and documentation bank.

The loan had commitments of US$600mn − three times more than the EDC’s target amount – but was scaled back.

EDC will use the loan to solely refinance its existing three-year US$175mn transferable syndicated facility, maturing in June 2013.

In turn, the refinancing will lengthen the remaining life of the facility to six years from two and substantially lower the interest costs.

The EDC, which also signed a 15-year US$75mn facility in May with the IFC, has a number of expansion projects in its pipeline and is currently eyeing Asia and Latin America as potential regions for overseas expansion.

“This is the third successful fund-raising exercise executed by EDC in the past six months,” says EDC’s senior vice-president and chief financial officer, Nestor Vasay.

“This is a clear testament to the positive sentiment and outlook by diverse group of investors and lenders to the company.”