Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
On May 11, 2023, financial close was reached on a deal in which a syndicate of 11 banks — including the Bank of China (BOC) and the Bank of Communications (BoComm) — entered into a €1.300 billion EUR ($1.4268 billion USD) syndicated term loan agreement with Westconnect GmbH — a Germany-incorporated fiber optics and telecommunications company headquartered in Essen operating the broadband network in western Germany, namely North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Lower Saxony that is jointly owned by Westenergie AG, a wholly owned subsidiary of German multinational electric utility E.ON SE (50% equity stake) and Igneo Infrastructure Partners (50% equity stake) — for the Westconnect West Germany Fiber-To-The-Premises (FTTP) Network Project. This loan was divided into two tranches: a €1.2 billion EUR capex facility tranche and a €100 million EUR revolving credit facility (RCF) tranche. There was an additional accordion facility with it. The proceeds were to be used by the borrower to finance its FTTP Project, which involved the construction of fiber optic connections to 1.5 million households in western Germany, improving access high-speed broadband Internet connectivity. 10 lenders, including BOC and BoComm, each contributed €86.70 million EUR ($95.16 million USD) to the loan syndicate, with KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH committing €433.00 million EUR ($475.23 million USD). Record ID#102285 captures BOC's contribution. Record ID#102286 captures BoComm's contribution. In addition to BOC and BoComm, the following lenders contributed to the loan syndicate: ABN AMRO Bank N.V., AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM), Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB), BNP Paribas S.A., Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba), KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH, MUFG Bank, Ltd., National Australia Bank Limited (NAB), and UniCredit S.p.A.. KfW IPEX-Bank, UniCredit, and BNP Paribas served as mandated lead arrangers, underwriters, and global coordinators. BNP Paribas served as global hedge coordinator. BOC, ABN Amro, Axa IM, Helaba, BayernLB, MUFG, and NAB joined in syndication.
Staff comments
1. Fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP), also called fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), is the installation and use of optical fiber from a central point to individual buildings to provide high-speed internet access.