Bank of China contributes to a $630 million loan to Mobile Telesystems for refinancing and general corporate purposes

On May 18, 2009, a syndicate of 18 banks — including the Bank of China (Eluosi) (BOC Eluosi) and Bank of China (UK) Limited (BOC UK) — signed a $630 million USD-equivalent syndicated loan agreement with Mobile Telesystems (MTS) — a Russian mobile network operator and telecommunications company — for refinancing and general corporate purposes. This loan carried a maturity period of three years and a final maturity date of May 18, 2012 and was repayable in three equal installments on May 18, 2011, November 18, 2011, and May 18, 2012 (a grace period of two years). This loan consisted of two tranches: a $360.0 million USD tranche with an interest rate of LIBOR plus a margin of 6.5% per annum and €238.1 million EUR tranche with an interest rate of EURIBOR plus a margin of 6.5% per annum. There was an agency fee equal to the greater of $1,500 per lender or $25,000. The proceeds were to be used by the borrower to partially refinance a 2006 $1.33 billion USD loan and for general corporate purposes. In addition to BOC (Elousi) and BOC UK, the following lenders contributed to the loan syndicate: ABN AMRO Bank N.V., Absolut Bank (ZAO), Bank of America Securities Limited, Joint-Stock company Banque Societe Generale Vostok, Bayerische Landesbank, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse International, Export Development Canada (EDC), HSBC Bank plc, ING Bank N.V., J.P. Morgan plc, Societe Generale Corporate and Investment Banking Paris, UniCredit Bank Austria AG, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), the London Branch of WestLB AG, and ZAO UniCredit Bank. BOC Elousi and BOC UK, Absolut Bank, Bank of America, Banque Societe Generale Vostok, BayernLB, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, EDC, HSBC, the London Branch of ING Bank, the Dublin Branch of ING Bank, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Societe Generale (Paris), RBS, UniCredit Bank, WestLB, and ZAO UniCreditBank. Credit Suisse and the London Branch of ING acted as Facility Agent. RBS appears to have joined as financial close. As of December 31, 2009, the outstanding balance was $701.6 million USD. On February 24, 2010, MTS voluntary repaid the full amount outstanding under the facility.

Additional details

1. The individual contribution of the 19 lenders to this $630 million USD syndicated loan is unknown. For the time being, AidData has estimated the combined contribution of both BOC subsidiaries ($66,315,789.4737 USD) by assuming that each lender contributed an equal amount ($33,157,894.7368 USD) to the syndicated loan. 2. It is also unclear if the BOC subsidiaries contributed to both the $360.0 million USD tranche and the €238.1 million EUR tranche. For now, AidData has assumed they contributed to both, and calculated the interest rate of this record by taking the average of both tranches, assuming 6-month LIBOR and EURIBOR (6-month LIBOR for May 2009 being 1.356% and the EURIBOR being 1.480%) {[(1.356% + 6.5%) + (1.480% + 6.5%)] / 2}, or 7.918%.

Number of official sources

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Number of total sources

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