On 21st October 2011, UC Rusal successfully closed the refinancing of a USD 4.75 billion pre-export finance facility on which Crédit Agricole CIB acted as a one of the coordinating mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners.

Crédit Agricole CIB was joined by ING, Nordea, Unicredit, BNP Paribas, Natixis, Société Générale, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Sberbank, as initial coordinating mandated lead arrangers, Gazprombank as coordinating mandated lead arranger as well as WestLB as initial senior mandated lead arranger, Commerzbank and Royal Bank of Scotland as initial mandated lead arrangers. BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole CIB, ING, Natixis, Nordea, Sberbank, Société Générale, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Unicredit were bookrunners on the transaction.
The facility was syndicated to the international bank market under challenging market conditions and still closed oversubscribed with additional commitments from seven banks. Crédit Agricole CIB’s final take was reduced by 15%.

The purpose of this facility is to refinance the outstanding debt under the international facilities governed by the International Override Agreement (IOA) entered into by RUSAL and international lenders on 7th December 2009, to the amount of USD 4.34 billion and Onexim Group liabilities to the amount of USD 552 million. In 2009 Crédit Agricole CIB participated as one of the group's main relationship banks in the coordinating committee, comprising 8 members.

“This USD 4.75 billion transaction is a considerable achievement under very challenging market conditions. We are pleased to have accompanied UC Rusal in this operation from the start.” says Yuri Kokaev, Senior Banker.

Constantin Koutzaroff, Deputy Head of Structured Commodity Finance adds: “The closing of this refinancing with a limited number of relationship banks has brought stability to UC Rusal’s pool of lenders and will now allow the company to focus on the future operational and economic challenges resulting from the developments in world markets.”

RUSAL is the world’s largest aluminium producer and one of the world’s major producers of alumina. The company was founded in 2000 and, following its merger with SUAL and the alumina assets of Glencore, became the global aluminium industry leader in 2007.