Bank of Sharjah mandates group for loan deal

12 July 2011

UAE bank plans to refinance $150m loan

The UAE’s Bank of Sharjah has appointed a group of banks to arrange a two-year refinancing deal.

The lender has appointed Germany’s Commerzbank (which will also lead the deal), the local National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Spain’s Intesa Sanpaolo and the US’ Wells Fargo, to arrange the deal.

The fund’s are being raised to refinance a $150m one year loan that Bank of Sharjah put in place in August last year, that was priced at around 150 basis points above the London interbank offered rate (Libor) (MEED 23:08:10).

Sources close to the new transaction say that Bank of Sharjah has not currently set out how much it wants to raise, and it will instead base the size on the deal on how strong the response from the bank market is.

Last year’s $150m was put in place by the same group of banks, with the additional of Italy’s Unicredit, which is not involved in the new deal at this stage.

Bank of Sharjah reported a profit of AED81m ($22m) for the first quarter of 2011, compared to AED134m in the first quarter of 2010, attributing the fall in profit to rising provisions.

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