Reuters: Bulgaria Seeking to Borrow EUR 1.3 B from Foreign Banks

Bulgaria is seeking to raise some EUR 1.3 B in new loans from foreign banks by end-2014 to finance budget deficit and provide liquidity support to banks, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Attributing its information to unnamed inside sources, the newswire said Citigroup, Unicredit, Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank and HSBC had shown interest in providing bridge financing, to be refinanced by a global bonds issue, probably in the first half of next year.

Other potential bidders for the loan include Intesa Sanpaolo, BNP Paribas, KBC and Raiffeisen, JP Morgan and Bank of America.

The bridge financing will most probably be a “syndicated effort by four or five banks”, according to one of the sources.

Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said last week that Bulgaria was likely to seek EUR 1.0-1.5 B (BGN 2.0-3.0 B) in bridge financing from foreign lenders as part of the planned 2014 budget update now before parliament. The government also plans to raise another BGN 2.0 B on the domestic market, most likely by issuing government securities, to cover repayment of state-guaranteed deposits at collapsed Corporate Commercial Bank, or KTB.

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