Energy trader MET Group has secured a €1.23bn multicurrency revolving borrowing base facility from a syndicate of 15 banks.

Baar-headquartered MET is active in natural gas, LNG and power trading markets and is present in 13 countries.

ING structured and led the secured facility, acting as co-ordinator, and security and facility agent. The bank is joined by Natixis and Société Générale as bookrunning mandated lead arrangers.

A MET spokesperson tells GTR the other lenders on the deal are Banque de Commerce et de Placements, Citi, Crédit Agricole, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank, Erste Bank, GarantiBank, OTP Bank, Rabobank, UniCredit and Zürcher Kantonalbank.

The facility was oversubscribed by around €230mn, according to MET. The trader says it includes a 364-day extension option and an accordion feature with the possibility of boosting the facility up to €1.7bn.

The facility will be used to refinance the group’s existing €885mn revolving credit facility and to help fuel growth, particularly for LNG imports and storage and sale of natural gas in the European market.

Privately held MET says its sales revenue more than doubled from €18.1bn in 2021 to €41.5bn last year even though traded volumes of natural gas declined, underlining the boon that energy price hikes have been for large energy traders, although gas prices have since slid from peaks immediately following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

MET chief financial officer Sven Kirch says: “2022 clearly demonstrated the importance of adequate, scalable and efficient funding solutions in gas and power trading. I am extremely pleased with the outcome of our new borrowing base facility.”

The facility “is a great illustration of the confidence our banking partners have in our integrated sales and trading business model as well as our risk management capability”, Kirch adds.