- Multi-currency syndicated loan of US$ 60 million and €30 million to finance investment programme at Turkey’s leading acrylic fibre maker
- Investment will improve company’s environmental performance, boost energy efficiency, support development of new products and enhance overall competitiveness
- Loan is syndicated to ING and to Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait.
The EBRD has arranged a long-term, multi-currency financing package worth almost US$ 95 million for the Turkish acrylic producer Aksa Akrilik.
Aksa is the world’s largest manufacturer of acrylic and acrylic fibre. Its fibres and filaments are woven into synthetic fibre cloth, blankets, carpets and knitted wear and are sold domestically and abroad.
The loan, with a seven-year maturity, will finance an ambitious investment programme to boost the company’s overall competitiveness at home and abroad. It will support the development of new products and will enhance energy and resource efficiency at Aksa’s production plant in Yalova, in north-western Turkey.
This is the EBRD’s fourth loan to Aksa.
The new financing comes under the A/B loan structure and includes US$ 50 million on the Bank’s own account (provided in US dollars and euros) and €30 million and US$ 10 million syndicated to ING and the Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait, respectively.
The syndication reconfirms the EBRD’s commitment to mobilising foreign financing to the Turkish economy. It also marks the first transaction with the Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait, or BBK, and a strengthening of cooperation with ING Group, one of the EBRD’s largest co-financiers.
Enhancing the competitiveness of Turkey’s major industrial players such as Aksa, especially through greater resource efficiency, is among the EBRD’s priorities in the country.
The Bank is a major investor in Turkey. Since 2009 it has invested €10 billion in various sectors of the Turkish economy, with almost all investment in the private sector. In 2017 alone, the Bank invested €1.6 billion in 51 projects.