A consortium of banks agreed today to lend Gazprom $12 billion, a record for a Russian company, to finance the takeover of oil firm Sibneft, senior bankers said today.
"We have agreed ... It's all going ahead," said one banker who participated in a meeting with top Gazprom officials in Moscow.
Another banker added: "We expect to get credit committee approvals by the end of this week."
They said the lending, subject to the approvals, would be in four portions including a one-year bridge loan of at least $5 billion. The remainder of the package will be a syndicated loan in three tranches of 18 months, three years and five years which will be refinanced partly via a bond sale.
The group of Western banks comprised: ABN Amro AAH.AS, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse.
