The total amount of €500 million ECA-backed Senior Unsecured financing package consists of a €300 million export credit facility covered by SACE, the Italian Export Credit Agency, with SIMEST CIRR support in connection to the DRI (direct reduction of iron ore) plant supplied by Tenova/Danieli from Italy and a €200 million export credit facility covered by Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB), the Austrian Export Credit Agency, in connection to the EAF (electric arc furnace) supplied by Primetals from Austria. These facilities are among the first ECA-covered Corporate Green Loans in the steel sector worldwide and the first in Germany.
The SACE-covered facility has been structured by BNP Paribas (BNPP) in its role as Coordinating Mandated Lead Arranger (MLA), Lender, Agent and ECA-Agent and Bookrunner. The OeKB-covered facility has been structured by Commerzbank as Coordinating Mandated Lead Arranger (MLA), Lender, Agent and ECA-Agent. BNPP jointly with Commerzbank, in their capacity as Coordinators aligned the interest of the two involved ECA’s and SIMEST across facilities. Deutsche Bank coordinated the Green Loan classification across the SACE and OeKB-covered facilities and acted as Sustainability Coordinator, MLA and Lender. BNPP acted as MLA and Lender also on the OeKB-covered facility and UniCredit as MLA and Lender on the SACE-covered facility. The finance parties, SACE and SIMEST were advised by Norton Rose Fulbright, while Salzgitter AG was advised by Linklaters.
The loans, structured under Loan Market Association’s Green Loan Principles, will fund a portion of the €2.3 billion Phase 1 of SALCOS® (Salzgitter Low CO2 Steelmaking), a program aimed to decarbonize the production of the second largest steel producer in Germany by converting the manufacturing process from blast furnaces to DRI plant and electric arc furnaces fed by direct reduced iron, powered respectively by green electricity and green hydrogen. A second party opinion from ISS-Corporate assessed and confirmed the alignment of the loans with the Loan Market Association’s Green Loan Principles and EU Taxonomy.
