Tsesna International BV, Netherlands, guaranteed by Tsesnabank JSC, Kazakhstan, has mandated Commerzbank and Standard Bank Plc as initial mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners to arrange a US$30mn syndicated term loan facility with a maturity of 370 days from the drawdown date and a bullet repayment.

 

Proceeds will be used for trade finance purposes.

 

Syndication was launched on May 2. Before launch of syndication Dresdner Kleinwort (acting through Dresdner Bank AG, Niederlassung Luxembourg) and JSC Citibank Kazakhstan joined the facility as mandated lead arrangers.

 

The margin is 20% per year..

 

Tickets on offer were: lead arrangers with US$7.5mn; arrangers with US$5mn; co-arrangers with US$3mn; lead manager US$1mn.

 

Tsesnabank was established as Commercial Joint Stock Bank Tsesnabank under the laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan in 1992. The bank was historically focused on northern and central Kazakhstan. Recently, however, the bank has expanded its strategy from being a regional bank to a bank with countrywide coverage, focusing on SME business and retail banking. As at January 1, 2007, according to the FMSA, the bank was the 11th largest Kazakh bank in terms of assets and shareholders’ equity.