Bank of Georgia Group PLC (LON:BGEO) today announced that JSC Bank of Georgia and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development have signed a c.GEL 28 million loan agreement with a maturity of 5 years. The facility aims to continue to provide the micro, small and medium sized enterprises the access to increasingly demanded local currency funding and to further support their alignment with the European Union’s Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement requirements. EBRD obtained the local currency funds through a private placement of GEL-denominated bonds arranged by Galt & Taggart – a wholly owned brokerage subsidiary of the Group. The local currency facility was designed to facilitate on-lending to the Bank’s clients solely in Georgian Lari.
Archil Gachechiladze, Bank CEO commented: “I am very pleased to see that EBRD has continued to be Bank of Georgia’s strong and reliable partner in providing local currency funding for our micro, small and medium sized business clients. This is our second cooperation with EBRD on a Georgian Lari denominated facility after a major success of our first 2-tranche programme in local currency launched in 2016. While de-dollarisation of the Georgian economy is gaining speed and scale, the local currency facilities of this kind are increasingly essential for us to continue to offer the most needed financial products to our business clients. We look forward to working with EBRD on many more successful local currency deals in the future.”
