The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) today launched their largest syndicated loan to date in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a US$ 250 million loan for Ispat Karmet in Kazakhstan.

The loan is the leading element of a US$ 450 million financing package provided jointly by the EBRD and the IFC to Ispat Karmet, one of the world’s largest single-site integrated steel plants with two captive power plants and 15 coal mines. As well as being the largest commercial enterprise in Kazakhstan, the company is a member of the fastest-growing steel conglomerate in the world, the LNM Group, which recently announced its intention to acquire one of the largest US steel companies, Inland Steel.

The Ispat Karmet financing package is the first for a major private industrial company in Kazakhstan and the largest financing ever provided for a privatised enterprise in the country. In addition to the EBRD and IFC loans, US$ 350 million of the investment package totalling over US$ 800 million is being funded by Ispat Karmet from internally generated cash flow.

Led by the EBRD and the IFC, two major multilateral financial institutions with extensive experience in Central Asia, the syndicated loan is fully underwritten. Joining the EBRD and the IFC in this transaction are five major commercial co-arrangers: ABN AMRO, Bayerische Landesbank, Credit Suisse First Boston, ING Barings and the Royal Bank of Canada Europe Limited. Their endorsement demonstrates the renewed interest in co-financing opportunities in the emerging markets of Central Asia.

The IFC fosters economic growth in the developing world by financing private sector investments, mobilising capital in the international financial markets, and providing technical assistance and advice to governments and businesses.

The EBRD was set up in 1991 following the collapse of communism, to aid the transition from centrally planned to market economies in central and eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The EBRD is owned by 60 shareholders: 58 countries, the European Investment Bank and the European Community, and operates with ECU 20 billion in capital.

Visit the EBRD’s website at: www. ebrd.com

Visit the IFC’s website at: www.ifc.org