CASE STUDY: İstanbul New Airport Lands €4.5bn Project Finance Loan

Background

İGA Havalimanı İşletmesi A.Ş., a consortium of Turkish sponsors developing the new airport in Istanbul, sought a long-term project finance loan to fund the first phase of the airport’s construction.

The airport is expected to have a capacity of 120 – 150 million passengers per year and, once complete, will be the largest airport in the world.

The consortium secured a long-term €4.48bn project finance facility is one of the largest project financings in Turkey to date in terms of deal size.

Transaction Breakdown

The €4.48bn project finance facility carries a tenor of 16-years, among the longest tenors seen on these kinds of transactions in the Turkish market.

As the largest greenfield infrastructure project in Turkey and one of the most complex, it was important to ensure that the construction and funding for the project could be effectively phased while structuring the deal in a lender-friendly way.

The first phase of the project is expected to finance the development of the airport up to a point of being able    to facilitate travel for up to 90 million passengers, the revenues from which will help fund future phases of the project’s development.

The lender group consisted of 6 Turkish banks, which shows the enhanced capability of the Turkish banks to finance such large-scale projects. The sponsors consisted of only Turkish companies, demonstrating the Turkish investors’ capabilities to undertake such large-scale projects.