Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the largest industrial company in the UAE outside oil and gas, has announced the successful completion of a $6.5-billion term loan facility with a group of leading global and regional banks.
The refinancing of the corporate debt optimises the aluminium giant’s capital structure by reducing the cost of debt, creating more flexibility for repayment, and aggregating debt at the EGA level. The term loan facility amends, extends and upsizes Ega’s existing $4.9 billion term loan facility agreed in December 2015, said the statement from Emirati group.
The proceeds from the increase in facility size have been used to fully repay a $1.8 billion term loan facility extended to EGA’s subsidiary Dubai Aluminium (Dubal), it added. The institutions that acted as co-ordinators, bookrunners and mandated lead arrangers for the transaction were Citi, First Abu Dhabi Bank, BNP Paribas, Emirates NBD, ING and Natixis.
Chief Financial Officer Danny Dweik said:
“This refinancing is another major step in the implementation of our capital structure strategy. Building on the previous transaction in 2015, this transaction further consolidates our debt at the EGA level, and strengthens our credit profile.”
The $6.5-billion term loan is a senior unsecured facility with a seven-year tenor and a flexible repayment profile allowing EGA to proactively manage its leverage and cash position. 25 global and regional banks participated in this transaction.
Senior VP (Strategy, Corporate Development and Capital Markets) Zouhir Regragui said:
“While our existing loans do not mature till 2021-22, we felt the current market conditions offered an excellent opportunity to proactively optimise our maturity profile.”
The bookrunners and mandated lead arrangers for the debt deal were Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Credit Agricole, Dubai Islamic Bank, Export Development Canada, Intesa Sanpaolo, Mashreqbank, MUFG, Samba, Societe Generale and Standard Chartered Bank.
Other banks that participated in the financing included Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait, Apicorp. Kuwait Finance House, Kuwait International Bank, Mega International, National Bank of Kuwait, National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah Islamic Bank and State Bank of India.
Source Trade Arabia