UAE Industrial Giant Agrees $6.5bn Debt Refinancing Deal

Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) on Thursday announced the successful completion of a $6.5 billion term loan facility with a group of global and regional banks.

EGA said the refinancing of its corporate debt optimises its capital structure by reducing the cost of debt and creating more flexibility for repayment.

The term loan facility amends, extends and upsizes EGA’s existing $4.9 billion term loan facility agreed in December 2015.

The proceeds from the increase in facility size have been used to fully repay a $1.8 billion term loan facility extended to EGA’s subsidiary Dubai Aluminium.

"This refinancing is another major step in the implementation of our capital structure strategy... Going forward, EGA will strive to further fortify its balance sheet and diversify its sources of financing," said Danny Dweik, EGA’s chief financial officer.

Zouhir Regragui, EGA’s senior vice president for Strategy, Corporate Development and Capital Markets, added: "While our existing loans do not mature till 2021-22, we felt the current market conditions offered an excellent opportunity to proactively optimise our maturity profile. We have been pleased by the significant demand in the market for our debt, both from long-standing banking partners and new lenders.

"As a result, we have been able to obtain very attractive financing terms and decrease our cost of capital as we begin a transformative year, during which our strategic upstream growth projects in Abu Dhabi and Guinea will begin production."

The institutions that acted as coordinators, bookrunners and mandated lead arrangers were Citi, First Abu Dhabi Bank, BNP Paribas, Emirates NBD, ING and Natixis.

The bookrunners and mandated lead arrangers were Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Credit Agricole, Dubai Islamic Bank, Export Development Canada, Intesa Sanpaolo, Mashreqbank, MUFG, Samba, Societe Generale and Standard Chartered Bank.

Other banks that participated in the financing were Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait, Apicorp, Kuwait Finance House, Kuwait International Bank, Mega International, National Bank of Kuwait, National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah Islamic Bank and State Bank of India.