The consortium comprising aluminium producer Alro Slatina and trading company Marco International (its main shareholder) will soon contract a $105m syndicated banking loan from the international market, according to banking market sources. Alro will use the money to expand its production capacity and its environment protection facilities, whereas Marco International will refinance the debt connected to the acquisition of Alro, according to the quoted sources.
The same sources say that the loan's lead manager will be German bank HVB. This will be the biggest credit contracted by a private Romanian company from the international market this year.
Peter Braun, Marco International's country manager for Romania, and Dan Pascariu, president of HVB Romania, would not comment on the lending information.
This year, the biggest syndicated loan contracted by a Romanian company (state-owned) from the international markets amounted to 200 million dollars and was obtained by Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank - BCR).
In the past two years, Alro has been constantly expanding its production capacity, due to increasing aluminium prices on the international markets. Thus, the plant saw its production capacity surge from 180,000 tonnes/year in 2002 to 230,000 tonnes/year, estimated for 2004.
The company's main shareholder, US-based trading company Marco International is planning to accelerate the expansion of the production capacity even more, to 300,000 tonnes/year, only to eventually reach 400,000 tonnes per year. Thus, part of the 105 million dollars will be used by Alro to this very end.
However, the bulk of the loan will be used by Marco International to refinance the loans contracted two-three years ago, to purchase Alro.
The American company took over Alro in two main s
