OREANDA-NEWS. On July 12, 2007 signing of the Syndication of the US$250 million Syndicated Wakala Financing Facility for Bank TuranAlem JSC Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank PJSC ("ADIB"), Barclays Capital, the investment banking division of Barclays Bank PLC ("Barclays Capital"), and CIMB Bank (L) Limited ("CIMB") (together the "Initial Mandated Lead Arrangers or the IMLA’s") announced the successful closing of the US$250 million Syndicated Wakala restricted with Commodity Murabaha Financing Facility (the "Facility") for Bank TuranAlem JSC ("the Purchaser"), reported the press-centre of JSC Bank TuranAlem.

ADIB acted as Shari’a Advisor, Documentation Agent and will act as Wakil / Facility Agent, Barclays Capital acted as Bookrunner and CIMB acted as Malaysian Roadshow Arranger in connection with the Facility. Proceeds from the Facility will be used to finance the Purchaser’s Islamic trade finance activities. Allen & Overy were the legal advisors to the transaction. The structure of the transaction has been approved by Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank's Shari’a & Fatwa Supervisory Board represented by its Executive Committee.

The transaction was launched for an amount of US$150 million with syndication being limited to a group of investors primarily in the Middle East and Malaysia and was signed on 10 July 2007.

The syndication was very successful, having closed oversubscribed and as such the Purchaser elected to increase the facility amount to US$250 million. A total of 14 financiers joined the Facility, out of which 4 were new names to Kazakhstan. The Purchaser has once again pioneered the use of Islamic finance in Central Asia being the first bank to raise two year Islamic financing. This follows on from the success of their previous Islamic transactions.

Proceeds raised from this new Facility will be deployed to promote Islamic financings for the benefit of the Purchaser’s clients. The documentation to be used by the Purchaser in providing financing to their customers has been approved by ADIB’s Shari’a and Fatwa Supervisory Board represented by its Executive Committee. ADIB as Shari’a Advisor will be conducting Shari’a audits to ensure Shari’a compliant utilization of the proceeds of the Murabaha.

Through this Facility the Purchaser has succeeded in again further broadening and diversifying its funding base and, in particular, has further developed its existing and prospective bank relationships in the Muslim world.

BTA’s Chairman of the Board, Roman Solodchenko said: "We may say that this Islamic Facility is the largest Islamic facility ever in BTA’s history. BTA was the first bank in the Kazakhstan banking system that introduced an Islamic structure to the Kazakhstan market and started establishing a good relationship with the most esteemed institutions of the Middle East region.

This time BTA has again proven its leader status by raising the largest amount for an Islamic deal in Kazakhstan – the launch amount of US$150 mln having been increased to a final amount of US$250 mln. We believe that such progress has been achieved due to BTA’s leading position in the financial market and its excellent relationship with banks from the Middle East region.

BTA is known as an "Islamic window" in the CIS market, having also organised the first Islamic Banking Conference in May 2007 in Almaty. We believe that BTA's strong and stable financial leadership position allows us to fulfil this role as a "pioneer" of Islamic financing in the Kazakhstan banking sector. The successful closure of the deal has again proven that BTA is continuing to expand its relationships all over the world by attracting new bank names to the Kazakhstan banking sector. This year we have also successfully started cooperating with Malaysian banks. This case shows that investors all over the world are interested in providing financing to Kazakhstan banks and Bank TuranAlem in particular."

The Purchaser is one of top banks in Kazakhstan and as of the 1st of April 2007 its assets increased by 18,5% since the beginning of the year and made up $19,4 bln, thus the market share of BTA came up to 24,6% in terms of assets. The main growth was due to the growth of the Bank’s loan portfolio, which made up 66,5% of the assets at the end of the 1st quarter of 2007.

Loans provided to SME and retail loans made up 40% of the whole loan portfolio. Net profit for April 1, 2007 amounted $103 mln., which is 1,9 times higher than that of the same period of the previous year, and consists mainly of the interest income- 65%, commission fees- 15%, and trade treasury transactions- 20%. ROAA is 2,17%, ROE- 24% and cost to income- 27,6%.

The Purchaser has a long-term foreign currency rating of Ba1 from Moody’s and a credit rating of BB from Standard and Poor's.

The Purchaser has received the following recent awards: "Best bank of 2006", "Bank of the Year 2006 in CIS", "Trade Finance Transaction of the Year 2006" (Trade Finance) and "The Best Transactions of the Year 2006" (GTR). It also received the "The Best Bank in CIS" and "The Best Bank of Central Asia", both from Euromoney in 2005 and the "Bank of the Year 2005 in Kazakhstan" from The Banker.