Syndication for Noble Group’s revolving credit facilities has closed at a record US$3.2bn, representing the largest syndicated financing for the company to date.

The supply chain manager originally launched the facilities with a target size of US$2.25bn, but they were oversubscribed by almost 40% due to exceptional interest in the market.

The facilities comprise a US$1.05bn 364-day committed revolving credit facility (RCF), a €244.4mn 364-day facility and a US$1.789bn three-year loan. Signing took place on July 12.

Noble will use all amounts borrowed to refinance certain amounts of its existing debt and for general corporate purposes.

A total of 68 financial institutions spanning five continents joined the final syndicate, making the transaction the most widely participated facility for an Asia Pacific-based borrower in 2011 to date.

This is the company’s second RCF transaction in less than 12 months; in December 2010 Noble completed an oversubscribed US$2.54bn facility.

Noble Group CEO Ricardo Leiman comments: “We are honoured to see the continuing strong support of the banking community. The facility is our largest to date, commensurate to the strong level of confidence our financing partners have in our company.”

The list of participating banks is as follows:
Bookrunner mandated lead arrangers
ABN Amro
Banco do Brasil
Bank of America
Bank of Tokyo‐Mitsubishi UFJ
Citigroup
Commerzbank
DBS Bank
Goldman Sachs
HSBC
ING
JP Morgan
Natixis
Rabobank
RBS
Société Générale
Standard Chartered Bank

Mandated lead arrangers:
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
UBS

Lead arrangers:
KfW IPEX‐Bank

Co‐lead arrangers:
Akbank
Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (Apicorp)
Santander
Crédit Agricole
Credit Suisse
Intesa Sanpaolo
Nedbank
Royal Bank of Canada
The Bank of Nova Scotia
UniCredit
United Overseas Bank Limited

A further nine banks participated as arrangers and 30 as co-arrangers.