Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
Circa early April 2004, a syndicate of 28 banks — including the Bank of China (BOC) — entered into a €1.5 billion EUR syndicated facility agreement with EWE AG — a Germany-incorporated utility company providing electricity and natural gas company headquartered in Oldenburg and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange — to finance its acquisition of a 47.9% stake in German natural gas company VNG – Verbundnetz Gas AG. BOC contributed €49.5 million EUR to the loan facility. In addition to BOC, the following lenders contributed to to the loan facility: Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Goldman Sachs Group, ABN AMRO Bank N.V. (€49.5 million EUR), Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (BBVA) (€49.5 million EUR), Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. (BTMU) (€49.5 million EUR), Barclays Capital (€49.5 million EUR), Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB) (€49.5 million EUR), Bremer Landesbank Kreditanstalt Oldenburg -Girozentrale (BLB) (€49.5 million EUR), Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Madrid (Caja Madrid) (€49.5 million EUR), Commerzbank AG (€49.5 million EUR), Credit Lyonnais (€49.5 million EUR), DekaBank (€49.5 million EUR), DZ Bank AG (€49.5 million EUR), Fortis Bank (€49.5 million EUR), Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba) (€49.5 million EUR), HypoVereinsbank (HVB) (€49.5 million EUR), HSBC Bank (€49.5 million EUR), ING Group N.V. (€49.5 million EUR), KfW (€49.5 million EUR), Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) (€49.5 million EUR), Mizuho Bank (€49.5 million EUR), Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (NORD/LB) (€49.5 million EUR), Royal Bank of Scotland (€49.5 million EUR), Sanpaolo IMI S.p.A. (€49.5 million EUR), CDC Ixis S.A. (€36 million EUR), Danske Bank A/S (€36 million EUR), Deutsche Postbank AG, (€36 million EUR), and Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. KGaA (€36 million EUR). Dresdner Kleinwort and Goldman Sachs were the original arrangers, with all lenders joining as lead arrangers committing €49.5 million EUR (scaled back from €100 million EUR) and co-arrangers committing €36 million EUR (scaled back from €50 million EUR). VNG – Verbundnetz Gas AG was a gas transmission company headquartered in Leipzig conducting the import, wholesale trade, transportation, storage, and export of natural gas, with its customers including primarily regional utilities and municipal utilities, large-scale industrial consumers, and power plants in east Germany receiving gas through its gas transmission network. VHG sourced its gas from Russia and Norway. In 2004, VNG supplied 16% of the natural gas consumed in Germany. The acquisition was to expand EWE's position in the energy market and pool its strength. EWE also concluded a consortium agreement with municipalities involved in VHG (25.79%), giving them majority voting rights for joint management of VNG. The acquisition was completed on January 28, 2004, with VNG renamed VNG Verbundnetz Gas Verwaltungs- und Beteiligungsgesellschaft m.b.H..