Pursuant to the Rules and Regulations of the Ljubljana Stock Exchange, d.d, and the relevant legislation, the company Poslovni sistem Mercator, d.d., hereby informs the shareholders and the public of the following:


Yesterday, company Poslovni sistem Mercator, d.d., signed the largest international syndicated loan in the history of the company in the amount EUR 137.6 m, by which Mercator will restructure a significant part of short-term financial liabilities into long-term ones. There will be no increase in the financial indebtedness of Mercator resulting from this transaction. The improvement of the term structure of financial liabilities and the diversification of funding will significantly reduce the refinancing risk and thereby increase the stability of Mercator Group operations.

The syndicated facility is taken out on an unsecured basis. Despite the uncertain financial market conditions which, among other things, continue to be reflected through a very low long-term availability of funding in Slovenia as well as in the wider region, there was a very positive response from the banks. The loan was substantially oversubscribed as Mercator initially planned to raise EUR 50 m. The banks registered in Slovenia will participate with the amount of EUR 45 m and foreign banks will participate with the amount of EUR 92.6 m. This indicates the high level of trust of the participants of the international and local financial markets in Mercator.

The syndicated loan is divided into two tranches, namely tranche A with a maturity of four years bullet and tranche B with a four year amortised structure with half-yearly repayments of principal. The syndicated facility was organized by Erste Bank AG in Vienna and facility agent Nova Ljubljanska Banka d.d. In addition to these banks the consortium also included eight other commercial banks: Abanka Vipa, d.d., Banka Celje, d.d., Banka Koper, d.d., BAWAG AG, Commerzbank AG, Deželna banka Slovenije, d.d., Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberoesterreich AG and VTB Bank Austria AG.

This loan is the second syndicated facility which Mercator Group signed in the past year. The total commitment under the first syndicated facility was EUR 130 m. In this year Mercator Group also concluded a long-term Schuldscheindarlehensvertrag (Assignable Loan Agreement) in the total amount EUR 58 m and refinanced a number of short-term bilateral facilities with long-term ones. In the last year Mercator obtained a total of more then EUR 400 m of new long-term facilities and therefore considerably improved the term structure of its financial liabilities.


This announcement will be published on the company’s website at www.mercator.si as of September 2nd 2011, and will remain posted for a period of at least five years.