We are pleased to announce that we are supporting the financing of the Equity Bridge Financing put in place for the benefit of the Madinah Airport Expansion PPP project by the TIBAH Consortium. The financing is led by The National Commercial Bank and includes Arab National Bank and Saudi British Bank. The deal closed in July 2012. SMBC Europe (London) acted as Financial Adviser to TIBAH and Norton Rose as their Legal Adviser. The project was awarded the Islamic Project Finance Deal of 2013 by Euromoney.
The project will finance the renovation and expansion of PrinceMohammadBinAdbulazizInternationalAirport which will see its servicing capacity increase from around 3.5 million passengers per year to 8 million per year by 2015. It is the first large project finance transaction in the MENA region to be structured on an entirely Sharia-compliant basis under a PPP scheme by securing $1.2bn in Islamic finance facilities from a syndicate of banks. The deal is also the first PPP for an airport in the Gulf region.
The award ceremony was held on the 27th of February following the Euromoney Islamic Finance Summit.
