OREANDA-NEWS. March 17, 2010. The AKADO Group of Companies announced that it will extend its strategic partnership with the ZAO Raiffeisenbank, which will provide a loan amounting to USD 100 million until the end of 2012, reported the press-centre of Raiffeisenbank.

In September 2008, Raiffeisen Group signed an agreement with the Group of Companies AKADO to grant a loan of USD 100 million with a repayment period of 18 months.

Now, after the loan extension, the short-term debt burden on the Group of Companies AKADO has been reduced by 4 times. In the event of the public flotation of the holding company AKADO on the stock exchange (IPO), the line of credit will be repaid ahead of schedule.

"The funding extension is part of a plan to alleviate the debt burden on the company after a period of intensive investment", noted a member of the Supervisory Committee of the Renova Group of Companies, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Group of Companies AKADO, Vladimir Kremer. "We are pleased with the close cooperation which has enabled us to solve this problem with one of the major financial partners of the AKADO Group of Companies — Raiffeisenbank".

"I would like to stress the importance of our close relationship", said Oxana Panchenko, Board Member, Head of Corporate Banking and Corporate Finance Directorate of Raiffeisenbank, "and consider the Renova Group of Companies to be one of the strategic clients of the bank in Russia".

The AKADO Group of Companies is a telecommunications holding company, whose main activity is the provision of television, broadband internet and telephony in a single package (Triple Play) to corporate and private clients based on advanced fiber-optic cable technology.

The key assets of the holding company are the ZAO AKADO-Stolitsa (Moscow’s leading operator of cable television, broadband Internet access and digital telephony), the OAO COMCOR (the main fiber-optic network in Moscow operating under the brand name AKADO Telecom), and Internet service providers and operators of cable TV in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Minsk (Belarus). The management company the ZAO AKADO performs general management of the AKADO Group of Companies.

ZAO Raiffeisenbank is a subsidiary of Raiffeisen International Bank-Holding AG. Raiffeisenbank is ranking 9th in terms of assets among the Russian banks based on 2009 results (Interfax-CEA). According to Interfax-CEA, ZAO Raiffeisenbank ranked 5th in Russia in terms of private deposits and 8th in consumer lending in Russia based on 2009 results.