OREANDA-NEWS. On July 24, 2007 Detsky Mir-Centre OJSC (managing company of Detsky Mir Group) signed $30 ml multicurrency loan agreement with International Moscow Bank (IMB), reported the press-centre of Sistema.

The interest rate is floating and is tied to US$ LIBOR, EURIBOR or MosPrime depending on the currency of the drawdown. The proceeds of the loan will be used to refinance current indebtedness. The maturity of the loan is 4 years from the effective date of the agreement.

"We have been working with Detsky Mir since 2003 and are interested in the improvement of our partnership. Detsky Mir is the largest national retailer for children goods, the company demonstrates stable performance over the past years, and we are happy that our products will contribute to the further strong growth of the company", - says Eugeny Retyunsky, member of IMB Executive Board, who is in charge of Corporate Business in IMB.

"This transaction completes an important stage of our debt restructuring program, which is aimed primarily at the reduction of interest expense, release of pledge, improvement of covenants, and the increase of the average maturity of commercial loans. IMB loan will allow us to do all that. Lower interest expense will ensure higher return on equity for our shareholders, and the removal of pledge, better covenants and extended maturities will reduce systematic risk of our company. We appreciate to have IMB as a new reliable partner", says Maxim Entyakov, Chief Executive Officer of Detsky Mir Centre OJSC.
 
Detsky Mir is the largest children's goods retail store chain in Russia, with 74 stores in 36 cities of the country. For the year ended December 31, 2006 Detsky Mir Group reported US GAAP revenues of US$ 335,3 million. The management company for the group is Detsky Mir Centre OJSC which is 100% owned by Sistema JSFC.

IMB is in top-10 by total assets in Russia according to Interfax-100 ranking. IMB is majority-owned (95%) by Bank Austria Creditanstalt (BA-CA, Vienna, Austria), member of UniCredit Group, Italy. UniCredit Group has now 35 million clients, 7 200 offices, 142 000 employees in 20 countries, and total assets of EUR 823 billion (as of March, 30 2007). The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) holds 5% of voting stock of IMB.