By Andrei Skvarsky.
Investors have pledged $2bn for Egypt in a planned loan arranged by a syndicate of nearly 20 banks that was led by Emirates NBD and First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) and included global bulge brackets.
The consortium, most of whose members were Gulf-based banks, included Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp and Intesa Sanpaolo.
The planned loan is a combined Islamic and conventional facility.
The sum was initially set at $1.5bn but the offer was oversubscribed, putting up the amount to about $2.6bn. Egypt took a $2bn option, Emirates NBD said in a statement.
The loan deal was signed on July 20 and approved by the Egyptian parliament on August 18. Between the two dates the daily number of officially registered new Covid-19 cases in Egypt dropped to about 160 from about 630.
Egypt is going to use the bulk of the money to plug budgetary shortfalls, sustain positive trends in its economy and dampen effects of current volatility in global markets, according to the Emirates NBD statement.
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