By Andrei Skvarsky.
Sovcombank, one of Russia’s largest banks by assets, has announced it has signed an agreement to receive its first loan to be based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles.
Financing Sovcombank’s buy-now-pay-later Halva card programme is the purpose of the ESG tranche of a two-tranche syndicated loan of $350m arranged for the firm by a group of about a dozen banks, among them HSBC, Credit Suisse and ING.
HSBC is also the coordinator of the ESG tranche.
The other tranche would be used to fund foreign trade operations and “general corporate” expenditures, according to a Sovcombank statement.
The bank initially set the sum to be borrowed at $200m but raised it to $350 after oversubscription.
The loan arrangers also include Germany’s Commerzbank, Italy’s Banca Intesa, the Russian units of UniCredit and Societe Generale, the Russian Regional Development Bank, Russia’s Bank Zenit, the Eurasian Development Bank, which is headquartered in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and the Moscow-based International Bank for Economic Co-operation.
One of the tranches has 12 and the other 18 months’ maturity.
“This is the second syndicated loan that we have obtained from a group of international and Russian investors but is our first ESG loan,” said Sovcombank chief executive Dmitry Gusev.
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