On Thursday, November 25, 2004 Alliance Bank has signed a syndicated trade finance loan in the amount of USD 23,5 million, increased from USD 15 million due to the syndication closed over-subscribed. Tenor is 6 months with an extension option for the same period of 6 months.
Standard Bank London Limited and Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich AG arranged the loan. 12 participating foreign banks and financial institutions presented 12 countries, including United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Canada, China and Latvia.
It is worth mentioning that this transaction is a debut unsecured syndicated loan of the bank. Previously, Alliance Bank has raised a gold pre-export syndicated loan in the amount of USD10 million with a one-year tenor that was repaid ahead of schedule in September of current year.
The purpose of the loan is to finance export and import related trade contracts of Alliance Bank’s customers.
The Bank plans to raise two new syndicated loans during following 2005.
As per previous press release, Alliance Bank ranks 6-th largest bank of the country by assets and has further plans to increase authorized capital stock through placement of mainly common shares and partly preference shares up to KZT 14 billion (USD 106,06 million)* by the year-end of 2004 and up to KZT 28 billion (USD 212,12 million) before end of following 2005. Also, Moody’s Investors Service has changed the outlook on the Ba3 long-term foreign currency deposit rating and E+ financial strength rating (FSR) of Kazakhstan’s Alliance Bank to positive from stable.
*Note: at exchange rate of USD 1 = KZT 132