Russian lender ropes in ICICI for $100 mn loan

UralSib Bank, Russia's biggest privately owned lender, hired Emirates Bank International PJSC and the UK unit of India's ICICI Bank Ltd to help it borrow $100 million for its trade-finance business.

Emirates Bank and ICICI are bookrunners for the one-year loan, the Dubai, United Arab Emirates-based lender said in an e-mailed statement today. They began syndicating the debt to other banks on February 1.

UralSib Bank, which has more than $10 billion in assets and more than 17,000 employees, is seeking to borrow $100 million to help finance trade with Asia, Deputy Chairman Alexander Dementiev said.

The facility for UralSib, whose name stands for Ural-Siberian bank, follows a one-year $200 million syndicated trade finance borrowing by local rival Alfa Bank. That loan, signed in November ,was arranged by ICICI, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, Commerzbank AG and Natexis Banques Populaires.