Abu Dhabi National Energy took a US$200 million yen-denominated loan as it makes its first step to repaying a bond due this year.
Taqa, as the state-owned power producer is known, will pay 60 basis points over the London Interbank Offered Rate for yen for the five-year loan, it said in a statement yesterday to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange.
The samurai loan, of ¥20.4 billion (Dh720m), was arranged by Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and swapped into US dollars. “This is the first part of our 2014 refinancing operation,” the chief financial officer Stephen Kersley said. “The Samurai loan brings in a new pool of liquidity at extremely competitive rates.”
Taqa, which produces power, crude oil and natural gas from Canada to North Africa and helps generate most of the electricity in the UAE, has a $1.2bn bond maturing in September. It will take “favourable opportunities” to manage borrowings, Mr Kersley said on an earnings conference call on March 25. Taqa will probably sell $1bn in bonds in the period between the March results announcement and the start of the European summer, Michael Ridley, a credit strategist at Mizuho Financial, said yesterday.
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