And speaking of electricity: The Egyptian Electricity Holding Company secured on Tuesday a USD 900 mn syndicated loan agreement, sources in the banking industry tell Reuters. The Finance Ministry announced yesterday (pdf) that it brokered the debt facility, which was coordinated by Credit Suisse and HSBC and will be used to pay off the EEHC’s foreign currency obligations. EEHC had offered lenders a margin interest and bank fees of more than 500 basis points over the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), bankers added. The loan was initially marketed to other banks at around USD 700 mn, but given banks’ level of interest, the size was raised to USD 900 mn. The loan is one in a series of facilities which demonstrate international financial institutions willingness to lend large sums to Egypt, the newswire notes. Other loans include USD 600 mn to the National Bank of Egypt and an upcoming USD 500 mn loan to Banque Misr.

The loan comes as Electricity Ministry is planning to hold a tender for the construction of nine transformer stations at a cost of EGP 6.2 bn, according to Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker.