EDB Starts Financing of the Pulkovo Airport PPP Project

Almaty, 28 February 2012. A pool of banks, which includes the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), transferred the first tranche of a loan for the PPP project to reconstruct, develop and operate Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg.

The project is a public-private partnership initiative financed, in addition to the EDB, by Vnesheconombank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Finance Corporation, the Nordic Investment Bank, the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank, and a number of commercial banks. The total financing provided is €716m. The EDB’s share is $90m.

«The first tranche amounts to €5m,» Gennady Zhuzhlev, Deputy Chairman of the EDB Executive Board, says. «When issuing the first tranche we tested the investment mechanism, which ensures synchronism and coordination between all lending banks and helps the agent bank to take into account the peculiar features of each lender when fulfilling the transaction.» According to Mr Zhuzhlev, the next tranche will be disbursed as early as in the end of March and then the loan will be paid in regular intervals as provided by the agreement.

In 2011 Project Finance (Euromoney), an authoritative U.K. magazine, named the project to reconstruct Pulkovo Airport the European Airport Deal of the Year 2010. In addition, the project received an award from the Infrastructure Journal as the Transport Deal of the Year and four awards from the Infrastructure Investor magazine: the Global PPP Transaction of the Year, the European PPP Transaction of the Year, the runner-up as the European Infrastructure Deal of the Year, and the fourth place as the Global Infrastructure Deal of the Year.