Orange Egypt, part of French telecom giant, announced Thursday reaching an agreement with a consortium of eight leading banks. The agreement grants Orange a new syndicated facility for 7 billion Egyptian pounds ($395.9 million) with a tenor of seven years (to be settled by June 2025) including a grace period of two years. The agreement comes after Orange increased its paid-up capital to 15.3 billion pounds, and raised its authorized capital to 20 billion pounds. The news was announced in big ceremony that took place at one of Cairo's hotels. The ceremony was attended by Jean Marc Harion, CEO of Orange Egypt, Amr El Ganiny, CEO – Institutional Banking of CIB, Heba Abd El Latif, Head of dead capital markets of CIB, Sherif Riad, Head of Corporate Banking, Debt & Structure Finance of National Bank of Egypt, Mohamed Younis Saadawy, General Manager-Group Head- Corporate Banking & Syndicated Loans of Banque Misr. In addition to, Tamer Negm, Senior Executive Manager – Head of Large Corporate Banking of Bank of Alexandria, Helmy Ghazy, Head of Global Banking of HSBC, Amr Azab, General Manager Head of Corporate Banking of Emirates National Bank of Dubai, Carlo Pellini, Head of Corporate Banking of Credit Agricole Egypt , Marwa Nabil, Head of Debt & Corporate Finance of Attijariwafa Bank Egypt, and Orange Egypt executives. The new syndicated facility will be utilized to refinance existing loans for a total of 4.3 billion pounds while the remaining 2.7 billion pounds will cover new capital expenses needed to complete the implementation of next generation network and the company's prospective expansions in the local market. The eight participating banks are: * Commercial International Bank – Facility Agent, Initial Mandated Lead Arranger and Bookrunner * National Bank of Egypt – Initial Mandated Lead Arranger and Bookrunner * Banque Misr – Initial Mandated Lead Arranger and Bookrunner * Alex Bank – Mandated Lead Arranger * HSBC Bank Egypt – Mandated Lead Arranger * Emirates National Bank of Dubai – Mandated Arranger * Credit Agricole Egypt – Mandated Arranger * Attijariwafa Bank Egypt – Mandated Arranger "This new loan agreement is allowing us to refinance our exciting debt and accelerate our growth in the market and further improve the performance of the company whose indicators have improved remarkably since last year" said Jean Marc Harion, CEO of Orange Egypt. Orange's consolidated financial indicators showed a drop in losses to 35.3 percent, recording 1.65 billion pounds in 2017 compared to 2.55 billion pounds in 2016.
