OREANDA-NEWS. July 03, 2007. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is making a $100 million A/B loan to Kreditprombank of Ukraine to boost credits to private enterprises, including SMEs, especially to finance Energy Efficiency projects, reported the press-centre of EBRD.

The transaction will allow Kreditprombank and its clients to benefit from the availability of long term funding from commercial sources. This is the longest maturity loan available to a local bank, otherwise only available to the large top-five banks or foreign owned banks in Ukraine.

The EBRD is financing $28 million under the A loan with maturity of four years, while a $72 million B loan has been syndicated to commercial banks. Up to $35 million of the proceeds will be used specifically to finance energy efficiency investments undertaken by Kreditprom’s clients. Technical Cooperation funding for energy efficiency project preparation, evaluation and marketing, is provided by the Swedish and Austrian governments.

Jean-Marc Peterschmitt, Director for Bank Relationships at the EBRD, said: “This is a new milestone in the long-standing relationship between the EBRD and Kreditprombank. The commercial syndication represents a new maturity benchmark for a Ukrainian local bank and the energy efficiency component of the loan will help promote high priority investments in Ukrainian enterprises.”

Mandated Lead Arrangers of the syndication were ING Bank N.V., Raiffeisen Zentralbank and Mizuho Corporate Bank. The B loan maturity is two years with a possibility of extension for another two years.

According to Ludmila Rasputnaya, Chairman of the Board of Kreditprombank, this syndication is very important for their bank in terms of pricing and maturities in international markets. Without the EBRD participation such syndication would hardly be possible, she added.
This syndicated loan is in line with the Bank’s strategy aimed at expansion of its activities in the financial sector of Ukraine through different products including equity and debt financing, securitisation and syndication, micro-lending, leasing and consumer finance. 

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is the biggest financial investor in Ukraine. As of the end January 2007 it had committed over ?2,87 billion through more than 130 projects.