The EBRD has arranged a $36 million syndicated loan to Bank Forum one of the largest banks in Ukraine. The loan facility consists of an A-loan of $12 million from EBRD and B-loan of $24 million. The loan facility was fully underwritten by Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich Aktiengesellschaft and Standard Bank Plc and attracted good interest from the market resulting in a significant oversubscription. The B-loan was syndicated to 9 commercial banks i.e. Erste Bank, State Bank of India, Nassau (OBU), HSBC Bank plc., National City Bank, Banque BIA, Banco Efisa, S.A. (Grupo BPN), Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank International AG, Raiffeisenlandesbank Niederösterreich-Wien AG and Land Bank of Taiwan, Offshore Banking Branch. The syndicated loan will allow Forum to provide medium-term funding to its clients in Ukraine. It is expected that the size of individual sub-loans under this facility will not exceed $2 million.

The EBRD was able to increase the B Loan by $4 million in order to accommodate the high demand from the market. The resultant oversubscription, however, only partly met the demand of participants.

The loan will provide much needed medium-term funding to Bank Forum for on-lending to its privately owned clients, primarily micro, small and medium companies in a local market where such funding and access to international capital markets is limited.

Since the beginning of its successful cooperation with the EBRD in 2001, Bank Forum has become involved into various EBRD programmes including Trade Facilitation Programme and SME/MSE Lines of Credit.

Forum Bank is the first Ukrainian bank to achieve a fully underwritten facility with such a long tenor and has become only the second Ukrainian bank to attract a syndicated loan with the 18-month maturity. This surpasses the 1-year threshold currently available for Ukrainian banks of similar size.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is the biggest financial investor in Ukraine. As of 31 December 2006 it had committed €2.87 billion through more than 130 projects.