Medina airport reaches financial close

04 July 2012

TAV consortium closes $1.2bn loan with local banks

A consortium led by Turkey’s TAV Airports Holding Company has reached financial close on a $1.2bn deal to finance a project to take over the operation of Medina airport and expand its capacity.

The deal has been financed by the local National Commercial Bank (NCB), SABB and Arab National Bank, after Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation pulled out of the deal in the final stages. NCB is the largest lender to the project, and also acted as documentation bank.

The deal is the first airport privatisation in Saudi Arabia. Banks had been hoping to close the financing by late June.

The TAV consortium will operate the airport for the next 25 years and also complete an expansion project to increase capacity from 3.3 million passengers a year to 8 million.

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