Anglo American scoops $4.5bn syndicated loan

South African mining giant Anglo American has increased a $3.5bn syndicated loan to $4.5bn after oversubscription saw the company attract a further 15 banks to the lending group.

The three-year dual tranche facility, which was signed in June 2008, has been equally split into a term loan paying at 60 basis points above Libor and a revolving credit package priced at 55 basis points over Libor.

The sum has been earmarked for the refinancing of a previous acquisition loan and for general corporate purposes, including the purchase of a controlling stake in the Minas Rio and Amapá iron ore projects from Brazil’s mining and metals enterprise MMX Mineração e Metálicos.

Bookrunners include BBVA, BNP Paribas, Barclays Capital and the Royal Bank of Scotland. MLAs include Banc of America, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort, Goldman Sachs, Intesa Sanpaolo, Lloyds TSB, Mizuho Corporate Bank, Morgan Stanley, Santander, Standard Bank, Standard Chartered, Canada’s TD Securities, UBS and UniCredit. Barclays was named documentation agent.

The financing is the latest in a string of recent fund-raisers this year by Anglo-American. The most recent include a £400m ten-year bond issue and €1bn seven-year bond, both of which were concluded in April 2008.

At the same time, Anglo American has been at the centre of speculation that Brazilian mining and steel giant Vale is preparing a mega-takeover bid. Vale would have to bid in the region of $100bn for Anglo American. However, Reuters reports that Anglo American is just one of three potential bid targets for Vale. Other reported bid targets include Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold and aluminium giant Alcoa.