Azerbaijan's AccessBank secures $60m syndicated loan

AccessBank has secured a $60 million syndicated loan arranged by Raiffeisen Bank International AG and joined by 16 other foreign banks to use for lending to micro businesses in Azerbaijan, Reuters reported.

The transaction was launched in January 2014 with the target of raising $25 million but strong interest from international investors led to a heavy oversubscription of the facility and enabled the bank to increase the amount to $60 million, the bank said in a statement.

The term of the loan facility is one year and it is priced at an interest rate of Libor+3.25 percent.

"This is a landmark transaction for AccessBank being the first syndicated loan transaction in the history of the Bank with solely commercial banks as investors," AccessBank CEO Michael Hoffman told a news conference.

AccessBank was founded in 2002 by foreign shareholders, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, KfW and the German consulting company LFS Financial Systems.

ANN.Az