August 29 (SeeNews) - The Croatian government said on Thursday it is giving its consent to motorway company Hrvatske Autoceste (HAC) for the withdrawal of a 400 million euro ($443 million) loan and is issuing state guarantees to support the credit.
The loan will be extended by commercial banks and will go to refinance HAC's existing loan with Deutsche Bank, which was taken back in September 2014, the government said a statement after its regular weekly meeting.
Part of the loan, 370 million euro, will be extended in kuna, while the remaining 30 million euro will be in euro, the statement said.
The new loan will have an 11 years maturity with a floating interested rate linked to 6-month EURIBOR plus 1.6% annually.
"Considering the existing loan which we are repaying, this is nearly 2.5 times cheaper, and will result in savings of [...] some 10 million euro annually," finance minister Zdravko Maric was quoted as saying in the government statement.
The new loan will be provided by Privredna Banka Zagreb, Zagrebacka Banka, the Croatian unit of Erste Bank, OTP Banka, the Croatian Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Karlovacka Banka, Hrvatska Postanska Banka, Imex Banka, Raiffeisenbank Austria, Addiko Bank, Croatia Banka and Istarska Kreditna Banka Umag.
($=0.9038 euro)