Sberbank to provide 500 mln euro loan for third Istanbul airport

Russia's largest lender, Sberbank, has granted ?GA Havaliman? ??letmesi (IGA), the builder and future operator of a third airport in Istanbul, 500 million euros in credit for the project, according to announcements by both parties. 

Sberbank will make the transaction through its Turkish unit, Denizbank, IGA said, adding that the loan will have a maturity of 16 years. A 30 million euro portion of the loan will be used as an operational capital loan. 

Istanbul's third airport is expected to be completed with an investment worth around 6 billion euros. Some 1.5 billion euros of the total is to come from the five companies in the contractor consortium. The rest (4.5 billion euros) is expected to come from the project's financing. 

Sberbank Deputy Chairman Sergei Gorkov and IGA managers Mehmet Cengiz, Nihat Özdemir and Cemal Kalyoncu signed the deal at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF 2015) on June 18. 

After the signing ceremony, Gorkov said the company was happy to finance the construction of the world's largest airport. Özdemir, who also chairs Limak Holding, said this would be the largest investment in modern Turkey's history. 

The government launched efforts for a third airport, saying that Atatürk International, currently the largest airport in the country, has run out of capacity, as the  flights by Turkish Airlines, the national flag carrier, have increased, due to the company's strategy to turn Turkey into a transfer hub.