Sinopec Canada Energy/Sinopec Century Bright Capital Investment US$5 billion loan

Mandated lead arrangers, underwriters and bookrunners: ANZ, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Citi, HSBC, Mizuho, United Overseas Bank

Mandated lead arrangers: BoAML, J.P. Morgan, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, Westpac Banking Corporation

In the largest syndicated loan completed by a Chinese state-owned enterprise in the past decade, the Sinopec Group, through Sinopec Canada Energy and Sinopec Century Bright Capital Investment, raised US$5 billion in a landmark deal in the region’s syndication market in 2011.

The five-year facility, which pays an interest margin of 1.03% per annum over Libor, was 1.3× oversubscribed and was upsized from the initial amount of US$3.8 billion.

It established a large investor base for Sinopec as the transaction attracted the participation of as many as 20 banks amid the market volatility resulting from the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis and the protracted US economic recovery.

The deal was fully underwritten, providing Sinopec with execution certainty. To generate early buy-in and establish momentum, relationship banks were approached early in the transaction for mandated lead arranger/bookrunner roles.

Proceeds from the facility will be used to support the company with its refinancing obligations in relation to the acquisition in Syncrude Canada as well as other overseas projects.

The transaction was completed within a tight timeframe of about five weeks from mandate to launch, until the signing of the facility, which was considered aggressive when compared with a typical vanilla transaction that takes eight weeks to complete.