DUBAI: Standard Chartered Bank and Noor Islamic Bank (NIB) announced today that they have acted jointly as Initial Mandate Lead Arrangers and Structuring Banks for a five years USD 175Mn Senior Secured Club Facility for Stanford Marine Group. The club of banks funding this transaction was Standard Chartered, Noor Islamic Bank, Barwa Bank from Qatar, Mubadala GE Capital PJSC and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.
Standard Chartered Bank acted as Facility Agent, Investment Agent, and Hedging Bank. The proceeds of the term loan have partly been used to refinance existing debt, according to Standard Chartered in an emailed statement. The facility also provides growth capital to acquire second hand and/or build offshore supply vessels. Some lenders of the existing debt, such as Mubadala GE Capital PJSC and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank have reiterated their commitment and support to Stanford Marine Group's growth plans. The deal included dual currency tranches (AED and USD) as well as both Conventional and Islamic Murabaha tranches. The transaction included a conventional term loan and a Commodity Murabaha Shariah compliant facility sharing a security pool of 21 vessels through a security trustee arrangement and a set of common terms agreement. SNR Denton acted as lenders' counsel and HFW acted as borrower's counsel. "The difficult market conditions that prevailed during the fourth quarter of 2011, imposed critical challenges on the lending market. With most European shipping finance banks retreating, on the back of the Eurozone crisis, this led to tightened USD liquidity pool and rising USD cost of funding. Consequently, we had to explore other sources of bank funding, such as the local currency (AED) and the Islamic liquidity. Standard Chartered is committed to the UAE market and we are glad to successfully co-arrange this unique facility to Stanford Marine Group and act as Agent for both the conventional and the Islamic facility, and look forward to working closely with them," Knut Mathiassen, Regional Head of Shipping Finance, Middle East, Standard Chartered said. "This was a complex deal, due to the tight timelines and the mortgaged vessels being flagged in different jurisdictions. It is a strong endorsement of our cross border Shari'a compliant financial expertise and our ability to leverage our world class footprint and capabilities in the Shari'a compliant finance sector," Kazim Ali, Acting Head of Corporate Banking, Noor Islamic Bank, said.Copyright Emirates News Agency (WAM) 2012.
