China Construction Bank contributes to €750 million EUR syndicated loan to Hungarian Exim Bank for on-lending to Antenna Hungária for the partial acquisition of Vodafone Magyarország in 2022 (Linked to Record ID#103615, #103616, and #103618)

Project narrative

In late 2022, financial close was reached on a deal in which a syndicate of 7 banks — including the London Branch of Bank of China (BOC), the London Branch of Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), the London Branch of China Construction Bank Corporation (CCB) and the London Branch of ICBC — entered into a €750 billion EUR syndicated loan agreement with Hungarian Export-Import Bank for on-lending to Antenna Hungária Zrt. (one of Hungary’s largest television broadcast providers) for its partial acquisition of Vodafone Magyarország Zrt. (Vodafone Hungary), the third largest mobile operator in Hungary that was previously owned by UK-based Vodafone. On August 22, 2022, Antenna Hungária Zrt.’s parent company 4iG Group announced that it intends to purchase 51 percent of Vodafone Magyarország and the Government of Hungary (represented by Corinus Zrt.) intends to purchase the rest of 49%. However, Antenna Hungária could not gather enough financial capital on its own and contacted Hungarian Exim Bank for foreign lending. The loan enables Antenna Hungária to borrow funds in EUR to finish the purchase. On January 8, 2023, Antenna Hungária, the Government of Hungary and Vodafone Magyarország signed the sale and purchase agreement totaling €1.67 billion EUR. On January 31, 2023, the acquisition was completed. While ICBC (Record ID#103615), ABC (Record ID#103616), BOC (Record ID#103618) and CCB (Record ID#103620) contributed to the €750 billion EUR syndicated loan, JP Morgan, Intesa Sanpaolo Group (served as mandated lead arranger) and Turkish billionaire Hüsnü Özyeğin contributed to this syndicated loan through a Dutch bank.