Syndicated Foreign Currency Loan Which Banks Participated?

Posted by Llama 3 70b on 27 June 2024

Tunisian Parliament Approves $570 Million Syndicated Loan Agreement with Banks

The Tunisian Parliament (ARP) approved yesterday a syndicated loan agreement between the State and banks, worth $570 million. Which banks participated in this operation? What are the amounts and currencies involved, and at what rates?

The loan consists of €156 million and $16 million, intended to finance the State and partially refinance the repayment of previous loans. The reference rates are the 6-month LIBOR (1.453% this morning) and the 6-month EURIBOR (3.671% this morning).

Euro-Denominated Financing

For the euro-denominated portion, the subscriptions were as follows:

  • 2-year fixed rate of 4.45%: Attijari Bank (€25 million), Amen Bank (€10 million), ATB (€10 million), BH Bank (€7 million), UBCI (€5 million), and BTE (€1 million). This tranche attracted a total of €58 million.
  • 2-year variable rate of EURIBOR 6M + 0.75%: BNA (€10 million), ABC Bank (€8 million), and Banque ZITOUNA (€2 million). The variable-rate subscriptions in euros attracted €20 million.
  • 3-year fixed rate of 4.60%: BIAT (€75 million) and North Africa International Bank (€1 million). A total of €76 million was subscribed in this tranche.
  • 4-year fixed rate of 4.75%: STB (€2 million).

Dollar-Denominated Financing

For the dollar-denominated portion, the subscriptions were as follows:

  • 2-year fixed rate of 5.85%: STB ($5 million), Wifak International Bank ($2 million), and BTK ($1 million). This gives us a total of $8 million.
  • 2-year variable rate of LIBOR 6M + 0.50%: Al Baraka Bank ($5 million) and TIB ($3 million), also totaling $8 million in subscriptions.

It is worth noting that the variable rates only attracted banks for a 2-year period, indicating a conviction that rates will remain relatively high during this period. However, beyond this period, the LIBOR and EURIBOR are expected to return to the levels of the "easy money" era. This is why the demand was exclusively for fixed-rate offers.

We recall that this operation is neutral in terms of foreign exchange reserves and has no link to the improvement observed in our reserves over the past few weeks.