European Bearing Corporation US$145,000,000 Term Loan Facility
BNP Paribas, Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft (“Commerzbank”) and HSBC Bank plc
(“HSBC”) (the "Initial Mandated Lead Arrangers” and “Bookrunners”) are pleased to
announce the signing of the US$145,000,000 Term Loan Facility (the “Facility”) for
European Bearing Corporation (“EBC” or the “Company”) on Tuesday 7th October 2008.
Launched at US$100,000,000, the Facility attracted strong support from the banks during
the syndication even in these challenging market conditions and closed oversubscribed. The
Company elected to take the oversubscription and increased the loan to US$145,000,000.
Absolut Bank, Norddeutsche Landesbank Luxembourg S.A., Nordea Bank AB, OAO
Swedbank and VTB Bank (France) SA joined the transaction as Mandated Lead Arrangers.
The Facility is split between a US$17,500,000 one-year bullet tranche, which carries an
option to extend it by another year and a US$127,500,000 three-year amortising term loan.
EBC specialises in production of bearings for the rail transportation, energy, metallurgical,
automotive, aerospace and agricultural industries in Russia and CIS.
Today, the Company operates five ball bearing plants in Russia and one in Kazakhstan and
produces more than 2,700 types of ball bearings for more than 960 customers. The Group
also operates the SHAR plant in Volzhsk, which supplies semi-finished goods to its bearing
plants. The Group’s products and processes are fully certified by Russian and ISO
9001:2000 (Lloyd’s) standards.
EBC maintains a solid relationship with Russian Railways with whom it has a supply contract
worth US$ 560 million, which secures for EBC average annual revenue of USD 100 million
until 2010. The Company also has various contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defence. |
