Argentine's Loma Negra gets $125m loan for expansion

Argentine cement company Loma Negra has secured a $125 million loan package from the Inter-American Development Bank and six commercial banks to complete its expansion program.

Santander and Standard Bank were the lead arrangers of the five-year, $105 million syndicated loan, which also includes Itau, HSBC, BBVA, and BNP Paribas, the IDB said in a statement. The IDB will provide an eight-year, $20 million loan.

The IDB originally approved a $100 million loan package in 2008, but said the figure was raised by $25 million due to strong demand.

"This expanded facility will offer Loma Negra longer tenors than are currently available in the Argentine financial market," said Jozef Henriquez, chief of the Syndication Unit of the IDB's Structured and Corporate Finance Department. "It reflects both the strength of its corporate parent and an increasingly receptive credit market."

Loma Negra, owned by Brazilian conglomerate Camargo Correa, has already started on the expansion and modernization of key production plants, which will boost total installed production capacity by about 1.8 million tons per year, to around 7.4 million tons per year.

The investment program will be completed in 2011, the company said in a statement.

From China Cement (2009-12-16)