CVRD Mulls Loan Upsize

Commitments are due this week for CVRD’s $5 billion two-tranche pre-export loan, part of the takeout of an $18 billion financing for the acquisition of Inco. The deal via ABN AMRO, Credit Suisse, Santander and UBS had almost $10 billion in commitments as of December 20 and the borrower is considering an upsize. It is split 75% in a five-year paying 62.5bp over Libor, and a seven-year at 75.0bp. The deal will leave CVRD with around $3 billion left to take out of the two-year bridge, which has also been refinanced in the local and dollar bond markets. The margin on the $18 billion acquisition bridge was 40bp over Libor in year one and 60bp in year two on a ratings grid. The leads each ended up with $795 million tickets. Senior MLAs got $725 million allocations, scaled back from $1.5 billion commitments. They were Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, BNP Paribas, Bank of America, Bradesco, Calyon, Citigroup, HSBC, JPMorgan and Scotiabank. Mandated lead arrangers (MLAs) ended up with $480 million versus $1 billion commitments. The deal wraps up a heavy year for the Latin American bank market. Bankers report a full pipeline for 2007.