The consortium comprising aluminium producer Alro Slatina and trading company Marco International (its main shareholder) will soon contract a $105m syndicated banking loan from the international market, according to banking market sources. Alro will use the money to expand its production capacity and its environment protection facilities, whereas Marco International will refinance the debt connected to the acquisition of Alro, according to the quoted sources.
The same sources say that the loan's lead manager will be German bank HVB. This will be the biggest credit contracted by a private Romanian company from the international market this year.
Peter Braun, Marco International's country manager for Romania, and Dan Pascariu, president of HVB Romania, would not comment on the lending information.
This year, the biggest syndicated loan contracted by a Romanian company (state-owned) from the international markets amounted to 200 million dollars and was obtained by Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank - BCR).
In the past two years, Alro has been constantly expanding its production capacity, due to increasing aluminium prices on the international markets. Thus, the plant saw its production capacity surge from 180,000 tonnes/year in 2002 to 230,000 tonnes/year, estimated for 2004.
The company's main shareholder, US-based trading company Marco International is planning to accelerate the expansion of the production capacity even more, to 300,000 tonnes/year, only to eventually reach 400,000 tonnes per year. Thus, part of the 105 million dollars will be used by Alro to this very end.
However, the bulk of the loan will be used by Marco International to refinance the loans contracted two-three years ago, to purchase Alro.
The American company took over Alro in two main stages. First, in 2001, Marco bought about 30% in the aluminium plant from the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE), through special transactions and a public purchasing offer. Marco already owned Romanian trading company Conef, which holds 10.5% in Alro and, this way, the U.S. firm came to control some 41% in the aluminium plant. In the second stage, Marco bought 10% in Alro from the Romanian State and then conducted capital increases that pushed its stake up to 75 percent.
Alro's takeover (the acquisition of Conef, the BSE transactions and public offering, the purchase of the 10% stake from the State and the capital increases) cost Marco International some 160 million dollars.
According to market information, which has not been validated by Marco officials, the trading company also used big loans from foreign banks to buy Alro. Some of these loans will be paid from the $105m credit.
Alro's privatisation was highly controversial, therefore it took almost two years to complete and several methods were used.
Eventually, although big names in the aluminium industry had voiced interest in Alro, Marco International became the majority shareholder in the Romanian company, due to an aggressive strategy of stock acquisitions from the Bucharest Stock Exchange and very strong political lobbying.
laurentiu.ispir@zf.ro
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