Middle East

Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) is working to get the final part of its second export credit agency-backed loan by the end of this quarter. The deal will wrap up the multibillion dollar-equivalent financing for one of the largest brownfield projects in the Middle East.

Maaden Bauxite and Alumina Co has amended and refinanced $2.1bn-equivalent of long term debt. The subsidiary of Saudi Arabian Mining Co has locked in better terms on its debt than the loans being replaced.

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank has returned to the Asian loan market after two years absence, plotting a $400m deal that has already been partly taken up by lead bank Mizuho.

There is a sense that banks in the Middle East are being encouraged to pledge allegiance in the public bond markets to either Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates or to Qatar, as the diplomatic tensions between the two sides rumble on. But in the MTN market it is becoming clear that no such division exists.

Middle Eastern loans bankers are preparing for even more M&A from the region in the coming months, with the United Arab Emirates tipped to continue driving asset sales.

A holding company owned by Dubai’s Oger Telecom has come to an agreement with all of its lending banks to give control of Turk Telekom to creditors, after months of restructuring talks on a $4.75bn loan.

MUFG announced this week that it has appointed a new international head of credit sales and trading.

As the trade tension deepens between the US and its counterparts, fund investors have fled to US bonds and equities, leaving emerging market fund outflows on the rise for the most part of 2018.

Frontier markets specialists Exotix Capital has made four new appointments to its EM sales business, expanding its coverage in four different geographies.

Akbank is due to send out invitation letters for its late summer one year syndicated loan by the end of this week, according to a source close to the Turkish lender.

Turkish banks are later than usual on their syndicated loan refinancing timetables amid political noise in the country, and loans bankers say it will soon be too late for the banks to roll the deals over, and they might instead have to take the unusual step of repaying the debt.

Turkey was driven further into financial instability and chaos this week, reflected in tumbling asset prices and the lira being at near record lows, after the country's president Recep Erdoğan delivered a further blow to investor confidence with a cabinet reshuffle.