Russia’s Metalloinvest has received a US$400mn syndicated pre-export finance loan, to be used to refinance the company’s current debt and for general corporate purposes.

Secured by export revenue and a guarantee from Metalloinvest’s holding company, the facility has the option to be increased to US$450mn. It is split between two tranches of five and seven years, and was arranged and co-ordinated jointly by Sberbank and UniCredit Austria.

Yan Veytsman, head of the metals and mining division, client management department, managing director, Sberbank CIB, says: “In 2015, a challenging year for the metallurgical sector, Metalloinvest improved its production indicators and increased its share of domestic iron ore supply to 66% thanks to an increase in deliveries to Russian metallurgists. The success of this transaction speaks volumes about the ability of Russian metals and mining companies to attract long-term financing on Russian and international markets.”

“For a number of years the banks of UniCredit Group have worked closely with Metalloinvest, which continues to deliver healthy results despite the complex market situation. With deals like this one, we always aim to use the advantages produced by our domestic bank working in close co-operation with colleagues from the other banks of the group, in this case UniCredit Bank Austria. This allows us to provide optimal conditions for the company,” adds Vadim Aparkhov, director of UniCredit’s corporate clients department.