Swiss-based energy company MET Group has closed its annual short-term revolving credit facilities, drawing in €915mn from 16 banks.

The agreement consists of a €592.5mn secured and a €322.5mn unsecured revolving credit facility (RCF), and comes with a 364-day tenor and evergreen extension options.

The financing is earmarked for working capital and general corporate purposes, and will support the company’s marketing and distribution activities in 15 countries across Europe.

The pricing remains unchanged from last year’s RCF, though the size of the facility dropped from €950mn.

There was also a change in the lenders involved, with ABN Amro and JP Morgan replaced by Banque de Commerce et de Placements and Sberbank.

Marc Pfefferli, group treasurer of MET Group, says: “MET has once again demonstrated a strong relationship with its banking partners. Despite a challenging environment, the pricing of the facilities remained identical as in the previous year.”

Pfefferli tells GTR that there has been a drop in risk appetite among major banks in the broader commodity and energy space, who were last year hit by defaults. ABN Amro, for one, announced in August that it would exit the trade and commodity finance sector.

He says that the latest RCF comes with “innovative carve outs”, which will help the firm finance its “growing gas marketing and renewable energy asset portfolio across Europe”.

MET Group has outlined plans for boosting the share of renewable energy assets in its portfolio, having completed the acquisition of a 100% stake in Enel Green Power Bulgaria EAD, which owns a 42-megawatt wind park in Bulgaria, in October last year.

MET said at the time that the transaction is part of the company’s growth strategy to develop a “significant renewable portfolio in the CEE [Central and Eastern Europe] region”.

Meanwhile, the firm recently established a physical presence in the German gas market after acquiring a storage business from Gas-Union GmbH in December. According to the firm, the deal will support its plans to scale up its sales activities to end consumers.

The latest RCF transaction saw ING act as the facility and security agent. Lenders included: Banque de Commerce et de Placements, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Erste, GarantiBank International, Gazprombank, GPB International, ING, Natixis, OTP Bank, UniCredit, Rabobank, Sberbank, Société Générale and Zuercher Kantonalbank. Lenders’ counsel was Mayer Brown.