Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
On July 15, 2008, a syndicate of 32 banks — including China Development Bank (CDB) and CITIC Ka Wah Bank — signed a $3.4 billion AUD syndicated loan agreement with SPI (Australia) Assets Pty Ltd. (SPIAA) — an Australia-incorporated special purpose vehicle (SPV) wholly owned by Singapore Power Ltd., a Singaporean state-owned electricity and gas distributor — for the Alinta Acquisition Refinancing Project. This loan carried a maturity period of three years and an interest rate of BBSY plus a margin of 85 basis points (bps), tied to the ratings grid of the borrower, with an increment of 5 bps added to the margin each time the borrower's rating decreased. Singapore Power issued a guarantee in support of this loan. The proceeds were to be used by the borrower to refinance existing loans signed in 2007 that been used for the acquisition of Australian energy infrastructure and gas distributor company Alinta Limited. Record ID#99755 captures CDB's contribution. Record ID#99756 captures CITIC Ka Wah Bank's contribution. In addition to CDB and CITIC, the following lenders contributed to the loan syndicate: Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), BNP Paribas S.A., Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Westpac Banking Corporation, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. (BTMU), the Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), Calyon, Dexia, Mizuho Corporate Bank (MHCB), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), Svenska Handelsbanken AB, TD Securities, the Bank of East Asia (BEA), Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), Chang Hwa Commercial Bank, Chinatrust Commercial Bank, DZ Bank, First Commercial Bank, ING Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A., Morgan Stanley, Sumitomo Trust & Banking Corp, UBS AG, and United Overseas Bank Limited (UOB). ANZ, BNP Paribas, CBA, RBS, and Westpac served as the original mandated arrangers and bookrunners. The other 27 banks joined in syndication. BTMU, Scotiabank, Calyon, MHCB, SMBC, Handelsbanken, and TD Securities joined as equal-status arrangers. CDB, CITIC, BEA, BBVA, Chang Hwa Commercial, Chinatrust Commercial, DZ Bank, First Commercial, ING Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, Morgan Stanley, Sumitomo Trust & Banking, UBS, and UOB. The loan was oversubscribed with over $4 billion AUD of commitments from the original $2.8 billion AUD target and up-sized to $3.4 billion AUD due to the oversubscription.
Staff comments
1. The individual contributions of the 32 lenders to this $3.4 billion AUD syndicated loan is unknown. For the time being, AidData has estimated the contribution of CDB and CITIC by assuming that each lender contributed an equal amount ($106,250,000 AUD) to the syndicated loan. 2. A 6-month BBSY was assumed. The average 6-month BBSY rate for July 15 2008 was 8.03% (drawn from this source https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/vf4hmk3ca1b11nm8tyjkg/BBSW-and-BBSY-Daily-Reference-Rates-2000-to-2023.xlsx.xlsx?cloud_editor=gsheet&dl=0&rlkey=ozq8sa1itiq8kmpnqhdb6jndh#gid=544580120). Therefore, the interest rate has been coded as 8.03% plus 0.85% (85 bps), or 8.88%.