Turkish private lender Yapi Kredi Bank on May 7 struck a 367-day syndicated loan agreement consisting of two tranches of $350.4mn and €606.8mn. It detailed the loan in a May 8 bourse filing. 

The loan will be used for trade finance purposes. The all-in cost will be Libor+250bp and Euribor+240bp. A total of 49 financial institutions from 21 different countries are participating in the loan deal.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, UniCredit and Mizuho Bank acted as deal coordinators .

In May 2018, Yapi Kredi obtained a $1.5bn syndicated loan. That loan consisted of four tranches. A 367-day tranche worth $332mn had a cost of Libor+1.30%, a 367-day tranche of €898mn had a cost of Euribor+1.20%, a 2-year 1-day tranche of $50mn had a cost of Libor+2.10%, and a 2-year 1-day tranche of €25mn came with a cost of Euribor+1.50%. The renewal ratio stood at 111% and the cost was 15bp lower compared to May 2017.

In October 2018, the lender obtained a 367-day syndicated loan of $1.1bn. A total of $275mn of the tranche had a cost of Libor+2.75% while €691mn of it had a cost of Euribor+2.65%.

Yapi Kredi was the third largest private bank in Turkey as of the end of 2018 with TRY373.4bn worth of assets. It is Turkey’s fifth largest bank by assets.

Koc Financial Services, a 50:50 JV between Turkey’s Koc Group and Italy’s UniCredit, controls an 81.9% stake in Yapi Kredi while the remaining 18.1% is publicly traded on Borsa Istanbul.

Despite the new wave of turbulence hitting Turkey, Global Capital reported in April in an article entitled “Turkish reforms disappoint, but loans unfazed” that Turkish lenders’ loan refinancing season was progressing undeterred.

In March, Akbank, owned by Turkish conglomerate Sabanci, obtained a $700mn 367-day syndicated loan. A $356mn tranche has a cost of Libor+2.50% while a €303mn tranche was pegged with Euribor+2.40%. Akbank’s syndicated loan renewal costs last year rose by 140bp to Libor+275bp and Euribor+265bp in September compared to April.

Also in March, state-owned lender Ziraat secured a syndicated loan worth $1.43bn. The total costs of the loan, which consists of $470mn and €849mn, are Libor+2.5% for the US dollar tranche and Euribor+2.4% for the euro tranche, respectively.

In April, Eximbank obtained a $630mn syndicated loan in two tranches with maturities of one year and two years. Part of the loan, namely $184mn worth, was denominated in USD while the remaining €398mn was denominated in EUR. The two-year tranche is worth $84mn. The costs on the one-year tranche stood at Libor+2.75% and Euribor+2.65%, lower by 20bp compared to a syndicated loan signed last October.

Also in April, Ziraat Bank’s Islamic banking unit Ziraat Katilim obtained a $250mn, 367-day syndicated loan.

The month also saw state-controlled Vakifbank obtain a 367-day $1.1bn syndicated loan. A $279.5mn tranche had a cost of Libor+2.50% and a €723.5mn tranche had a cost of Euribor+2.40%.

In February, unnamed sources told Bloomberg that Turkey’s sovereign wealth fund had hired Citigroup and Industrial Commercial Bank of China to act as coordinators in a €1bn syndicated loan deal.