Enerjisa wins "European Power Portfolio Deal of the Year"
Enerjisa, the Verbund-Sabanci joint venture, has received Euromoney Project Finance Magazine's "European Power Portfolio Deal of the Year" award for the financing package concluded in July 2008 to expand around 2,000 MW of power plant capacity.
The prize honours the financing know-how of the partners, who have concluded a tailor-made project portfolio financing amid a difficult market environment. The financing package was devised by Enerjisa and its owners Verbund and Sabanci, and successfully concluded in July 2008.
The project portfolio financing to the tune of 1 billion euro for the first phase of the expansion program for around 2,000 MW of new power plant capacity in Turkey, half of which stems from hydropower, was structured amid an extremely difficult capital market environment. Alongside the criteria of innovation, repeatability of the deal, best practice, problem solving, risk minimization and supply difficulty, the jury of specialized journalists made particular allowances for this difficult market environment when making their nomination.
This financing transaction concerns the largest international financing package for a private Turkish enterprise in the deregulated Turkish electricity market. In view of the difficult market conditions, this financing is deemed to be a strong signal that Enerjisa is able to take up market leadership among the electricity producers on Turkey’s liberalized electricity market. This very special transaction safeguards an annual generation of 12,000 gigawatt hours of electricity, with which 3.6 million consumers can be supplied. The partners are striving for a vertically integrated company in a strongly growing Turkish energy market. They have set themselves the goal of attaining a market share of 10 % by 2015 and therewith taking up the market leadership.
From the bank’s side, the financing package was supported by IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, Akbank T.A.S. and WestLB AG, who together formed the global coordinators, and a series of Austrian and international banks.
In 2008, Enerjisa was also elected as "Second Most Admired Company in the Energy Sector" in Turkey. This accolade is awarded every year by Turkey’s Capital Magazine. A survey was conducted among 1351 managers from the middle and higher levels of management.