Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
In or around early March 2007, a syndicate of 29 banks — including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) — signed a €400 million EUR syndicated loan agreement with Straumur Investment Bank hf. — an Icelandic independent regional investment bank focused across northern Europe primarily owned by Björgólfur Guðmundsson and his son Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson — for general corporate purposes. This loan was divided into two tranches: a term loan tranche with a maturity period of 364 days and an interest rate based on a floating rate plus a margin of 35 basis points (bps) a tranche with a maturity period of three years and an interest rate based on a floating rate plus a margin of 67.5 bps. The proceeds were to be used by the borrower for general corporate purposes. In addition to ICBC, the following lenders contributed to the loan syndicate: Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB), Commerzbank AG, Fortis Bank, Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich A.G. (RZB), Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (NORD/LB), UniCredit S.p.A., Standard Bank, WGZ Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort, Société Générale S.A. (SocGen), Natixis, DZ Bank AG, HSH Nordbank AG, LRP Landesbank Rheinland-Pfalz, Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), Deutsche Bank, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. (BTMU), Cathay United Bank, Caixa Geral de Depositos, Landesbank Sachsen Aktiengesellschaft (SaschenLB), Landesbank Saar (SaarLB), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Hua Nan Commercial Bank (HNCB), WestLB AG, BAWAG P.S.K., ABN AMRO Bank NV, First Commercial Bank Limited, and Raiffeisenlandesbank Niederösterreich-Wien AG (RLB NÖ-Wien). BayernLB, Commerzbank, Fortis Bank, and RZB served as the mandated lead arrangers. ICBC, NORD/LB, UniCredit, Standard Bank, WGZ, Dresdner Kleinwort, SocGen, and Natixis served as senior lead arrangers. DZ Bank, HSH Nordbank, Landesbank Rheinland-Pfalz, ZKB, Deutsche Bank, and BTMU served as arrangers. Cathay United, Caixa Geral de Depositos, SaschenLB, and SaarLB served as senior lead managers. RBS, HNCB, WestLB, BAWAG, ABN AMRO, First Commercial Bank, and RLB NÖ-Wien served as lead manager. The loan was launched with a €175 million EUR target before being increased to €400 million EUR in syndication. In 2008, Iceland fell into a major financial crisis; in October 2008, all of Iceland's major banks — except Straumur — collapsed because of their billions of outstanding debts. Straumur remained the last major Icelandic bank left. Straumur soon thereafter faced liquidity issues and soon was to close without requested government assistance. On March 9, 2009, Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority nationalized Straumur.
Staff comments
1. AidData has assumed each lender contributed to each tranche. The individual contributions of the 29 lenders to this €400 million EUR syndicated loan syndicated loan are unknown. For the time being, AidData has estimated the contribution of ICBC by assuming each contributed an equal amount (€13,793,103.4483 EUR) to the loan syndicate. 2. While it is unconfirmed that ICBC contributed to each tranche, AidData has assumed it has. Therefore, to code the maturity period of this record, AidData has taken the average of the two tranches' maturity periods {[(1 + 3) / 2] = 2} and coded it as the maturity period of this record.