YEREVAN, June 21 /ARKA/. The Black Sea Trade & Development Bank (BSTDB) has raised USD 400 million with a new bond issued under its EUR 1 billion Medium-Term Note Programme. The bond has a five year maturity and a fixed coupon of 3.5% payable semi-annually, the BSTDB said in a press release.

It said strong investor interest, in the BSTDB name and business profile, from Asia, Europe and the USA, saw the issue strongly oversubscribed, with a book size in excess of USD 1.7 billion. The resulting funding cost for the BSTDB was lower by more than 150bps from the Bank’s last USD 500 million five-year issuance in May 2016.

Proceeds of the bond will be used to support the Bank’s ambitious portfolio growth and business targets set forth in its Medium-Term Strategy for the 2019-2022 period.

The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) is an international financial institution established by Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine.

The BSTDB headquarters are in Thessaloniki, Greece. BSTDB supports economic development and regional cooperation by providing loans, credit lines, equity and guarantees for projects and trade financing in the public and private sectors in its member countries. The authorized capital of the Bank is EUR 3.45 billion. BSTDB is rated long-term “A-” by Standard and Poor’s and “A2” by Moody’s. -0-