Metinvest has secured a €25mn 10-year buyer credit facility backed by Euler Hermes. This is the Ukrainian steel producer’s first ECA-covered loan.

Deutsche Bank took the role of sole arranger and sole lender on the facility, which bears an interest of 1.95% a year.
Sergiy Novikov, Metinvest’s chief financial officer, says that the loan is Deutsche Bank’s largest ECA-covered facility to a Ukrainian company to date.

According to Metinvest, the facility will be used to finance the construction of a pulverised coal injection (PCI) unit at Yenakiieve Iron and Steel Works by Küttner & Co, a German industrial manufacturer.

“It will enable us to proceed with the construction of the PCI unit which is a key part of our technological upgrade programme,” says Novikov.

In July this year, Metinvest announced that it had fully repaid a five-year US$1.5bn global refinance facility which was arranged by a syndicate of 16 banks back in July 2007.

At the time the deal was the largest ever syndicated loan raised for a corporate borrower in Ukraine.