OREANDA-NEWS. On 13 July 2009 BANK URALSIB (URALSIB or Bank) (RTS: USBN) announced the repayment of two syndicated loans with total amount of USD US 717 mln.

Earlier this month BANK URALSIB repaid two syndicated loans with the total amount of USD US 717 mln. One and two-year term loans were borrowed from a wide range of International financial institutions in 2007-2008. The loans were repaid by means of liquid reserves accumulated by the Bank.

As Deputy Chairman of URALSIB Management Board, Alexander Dementiev, said the Bank had not resorted to the refinancing of those two loans due to both an extremely unfavorable market conditions and a current lack of need in new borrowings. Stability and loyalty of URALSIB’s customer base provided the Bank with sufficient liquidity for servicing its current commitments in spite of the crisis in banking sector. Besides, during IH2009 the Bank repaid some of its liabilities in advance thus ensuring a smoother schedule of current year repayments. According to Alexander Dementiev, the Bank’s international business division would focus on arranging its customers’ foreign trade financing in the nearest future, furthermore he did not rule out a resumption of activities in the area of syndicated, club and bilateral loans by the end of the year 2009, in case of market situation improvement and enhancement for foreign currency lending to Russian real economy sector companies.

BANK URALSIB has been holding strong positions at the syndicated loans market traditionally since 2002. A large number of banks from Europe, North America, Middle East and South-East Asia were URALSIB’s lenders.