Turkey's Akbank secures $1.15B loan for 2017

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s Akbank announced on Tuesday it had secured another $1.15 billion equivalent multi-currency syndicated loan for 2017.

The loan, which breaks down into facilities of $542.6 million and €515.1 million, marks the bank's second round of refinancing in 2017 and will be used for the lender’s trade finance and for general corporate purposes.

"On the back of favorable political and macroeconomic developments in Turkey and Akbank's strong fundamentals, the facilities received an overwhelming global response during general syndication," the bank said in a statement.

Akbank, which is the country's third-largest lender by assets, also stated that, in addition to its traditional longstanding relationship banks, new banks from China, South Korea, India and Taiwan had participated in the facility.

"The transaction has received strong support from Asian banks with a share of received 27 percent of the final allocation, excluding Japan," it added.

Akbank's CEO, Hakan Binbasgil, stated they were proud of carrying out an operation that shows increasing international interest in the Turkish banking sector.

"As a consequence of Akbank's robust financials and strong liquidity, the bank scaled back the facility size from $1.45 billion to $1.15 billion," Binbasgil added.