Emirates Global Aluminium has successfully refinanced US$5.5 billion of corporate debt, deleveraging and improving repayment terms to reduce costs and enable an optimal dividend policy in future years for shareholders.
The term loan facility reduces by US$1 billion the size of EGA’s existing seven-year US$6.5 billion loan facility signed in 2019, as strong aluminium prices and EGA’s operational performance drive liquidity at the company.
The new facility, which is a senior unsecured loan, reprofiles EGA’s scheduled debt repayments and extends them by 2.5 years. The terms include a mechanism that delivers material reductions in the cost of debt to EGA as the company further strengthens its balance sheet and reduces leverage.
The transaction was well received by the market, and significantly oversubscribed by the 22 local, regional and international banks that participated in the deal.
Zouhir Regragui, EGA’s Chief Financial Officer, said, “2020 was a pivot year for EGA when, after delivering upon our upstream expansion strategy by completing our investments in bauxite and alumina, we have turned our focus to deleveraging to support EGA’s ambitions to further strengthen our balance sheet and – if our shareholders wish it – become not only the UAE’s largest non-oil industrial company but also one of this country’s largest listed companies.”
The institutions that acted as coordinators, bookrunners and mandated lead arrangers were Citi, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD, First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC, and Natixis The other bookrunners and mandated lead arrangers were Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, BNP Paribas, Export Development Canada, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, MUFG, Societe Generale, and Standard Chartered.
Other banks that participated in the financing were Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait, Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation, Commercial Bank of Dubai, Kuwait Finance House, Mashreq Bank, National Bank of Kuwait, National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah Islamic Bank and State Bank of India.
First Abu Dhabi Bank acted as Global Agent and Conventional Facility Agent, and Dubai Islamic Bank acted as an Islamic Facility Agent for the transaction.