Saudi Arabia closes $16 bln loan: report

Saudi Arabia has closed a $16 billion syndicated loan to refinance its $10 billion facility signed in 2016, Reuters reported, citing unnamed banking sources.

The deal, which closed on March 19, consists of an $8.35 billion term loan and a $7.65 billion murabaha financing.

HSBC, JP Morgan and MUFG were coordinators, bookrunners and mandated lead arrangers on the deal with Bank of China, Citibank, Credit Agricole, ICBC, Mizuho Bank, Standard Chartered and SMBC as bookrunners and mandated lead arrangers.

BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, Societe Generale joined as mandated lead arrangers and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley acted as lead arrangers, the news agency said.

The new deal included the extension of its maturity to 2023 from 2021 and a repricing that is 30 percent lower than on the original loan, bringing pricing to 84 basis points over Libor from the 120 basis points over Libor for 2016 deal.

In March, the Kingdom's Debt Management Office (DMO) said it was expanding the refinancing of a $10 billion international loan to raise $16 billion, which would include a Sharia-compliant instrument.

Saudi Arabia had raised the original $10 billion loan from 14 core banks, the DMO said.