The deal was priced at 210 basis points over the London interbank offered rate (Libor) when it went into senior syndication, among a small group of banks, in October (MEED 14:11:08).

The pricing is expected to increase over the next few weeks to attract interest from more banks.

The government-linked investment fund has had to reduce the size of the deal, from an original plan of raising Eur1.7bn.

The deal is being arranged by the UK’s Royal Bank of Scotland, Germany’s WestLB and Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.