Noble Group has mandated China Development Bank, Citi, Commerzbank Group, DBS Bank, ING, Rabobank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Société Générale and Standard Chartered Bank as joint bookrunners and mandated lead arrangers on the deal.
The loan is an increase of Noble Group's outstanding $800m revolver, which falls due in May 2011. Noble will extend its maturities to July 2012 and July 2013, and will also amend the margin and fee structure.
The increased size of the loan suggests that the borrower remains confident in the strength of Asia's loan markets, despite some market participants' worries over the impact the European debt crisis could have on the loan market.
The $800m loan was signed in 2009, and was itself an extension and increase of a $700m facility closed the year before. The 2008 loan was due to expire in April 2010, but in May last year Noble Group offered to almost double its initial margin to extend the loan to April 2011.
That was in line with moves from other borrowers last year, when frozen credit markets caused a lot of concern about refinancing risk. But now the loan market has recovered considerably, and borrowers are looking to refinance their 2009 deals at more attractive margins.
Noble Group's 2009 deal carried a blended margin of 57bp over Libor that would rise to 112bp from April 2010 to April 2011, according to Dealogic. The all-in pricing was 159.5bp per year on a blended basis.
European loan bankers expect margins will stop falling or go up after heavy tightening since the beginning of the year. But bankers on the Noble deal are confident Europe's problems will not affect the deal in either size or pricing. They pointed to its unfunded structure through a letter of credit as an attractive feature.
Commodities companies have proved popular in the loan markets this year. Glencore International signed a $10.2bn refinancing last month which tapped the Asian and European loan markets, having increased the deal from a target size of $7bn.