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EBRD loan helps fund acquisition of regional Russian brewer
$25 million loan encourages Urals expansion by Turkey’s Efes Group
A $25-million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will help Turkey’s Efes Beverage Group (EBG) make its first regional acquisition in Russia and buy the Amstar brewery in Ufa, the capital of Bashkorstan in the Urals.
Half of the six-year loan has been syndicated to ABN AMRO BANK N.V.
The acquisition of Amstar will position Efes as the third-largest brewer in Russia.
The EBRD has played a major role in financing the development of brewing capacity in Russia, one of the world’s fastest growing beer markets. The new financing to Moscow Efes Brewery will mark the Bank’s first direct funding for the Russian beer sector outside Moscow and St. Petersburg.
We are happy to see EBG expanding its activities into the regions in Russia, as these areas till have the potential for significant development, said Hans Christian Jacobsen, Director of the EBRD Agribusiness Team. Joining forces in a lending syndicate with ABN AMRO to provide long-term finance for the Russian consumer goods sector is also important for us.
Investment in the beer sector has a strong catalytic effect throughout the food chain, both upstream, for malt and barley production, for example, and downstream in such areas as packaging and distribution, Mr. Jacobsen added.
For the last two years, the Bank has been an investor in Amstar brewery through a 25 percent stake held by three of its venture funds in Russia -- Eagle Urals, Eagle Black Earth and Eagle Smolensk – alongside Russian entrepreneurs and Amstar management. These EBRD funds have sold most of their shares to Efes but will hold a small indirect stake in the Moscow Efes Brewery.
The $25 million loan is being funded under a recently increased $75 million regional facility the Bank agreed to provide to Turkey’s Anadolu Efes Biracilik ve Malt Sanayii AS – the parent company of the Efes group – to back the group’s expansion in the EBRD’s countries of operation.
EBRD cumulative commitments to Efes Beverage Group since 1997 total over $95 million, but part of this has already been repaid.
The EBRD has to date signed 186 investments in the agribusiness sector totalling more than €3 billion.
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