Qatar Telecom (Qtel) is due to close a $2bn loan deal by 14 May, with banks expecting to be scaled back significantly after the deal was oversubscribed.

Sources close to the deal say the syndication process, which closed on 12 May, received around $800m of new commitments. Qtel had already managed to receive bank commitments of $2bn from a group of 11 banks which were appointed mandated lead arrangers in mid-April.

Following this the deal was launched into a wider syndication where those 11 banks offer to reduce their commitments to the loan. More than 10 new banks are understood to have offered loans to the firm.

One banker close to the deal says, “All the banks will have to be scaled back now because the response was much stronger than we had expected.”

The total lending group for the $2bn loan will then be around 20 banks. The deal is priced at 125 basis points above the London interbank offered rate (libor). The $2bn is split between a $1.25bn three-year loan and a $750m five-year loan.