التاريخ :  18  10  2008    

PRESS RELEASE


BNP Paribas Wins ‘Best Project Finance House in the Middle East’ – Euromoney Award - Arabic Version

‘2008 a promising year with major deals already closed’ - Durand

For the second time, BNP Paribas has been named Best Project Finance House in the Middle East. The award was presented at the Euromoney awards for Excellence Middle East Dinner 2008 recently at the Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai, and the news was later published in the Euromoney magazine.

The award recognised BNP Paribas’ pioneering role in project finance, especially since the bank has played key roles in a number of remarkable projects across a wide array of sectors (aluminium, power and petrochemicals) and challenging market conditions. To name a few, BNP Paribas acted as financial advisor to the preferred bidder mandated lead arranger in the world's largest independent power and water project: the $3.3bn Marafiq project. It was also lead arranger and bookrunner in the debt financing for the $7bn Emirates Aluminium project. Moreover, it was the financial advisors and one of the lead arranging banks on the largest aluminum financing projects in Qatar, Qatalum.

Despite strong competition, other Landmark transactions were also closed in the second quarter of 2008, such as Saudi Kayan Petrochemicals for which BNP Paribas also acted as financial advisor along with ABC and Samba in Saudi Arabia, in Yemen LNG also, and many others are in the pipeline. Building on its strategic advisory role, BNP Paribas is currently advising on future significant transactions that may come to fruition this year covering an impressive array of sectors, across the region, especially in Abu Dhabi, as well as Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
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Commenting on the news, Mr. Jean-Christophe Durand, BNP Paribas' GCC Regional Director, said “The award from Euromoney once again reiterates our status as the pioneering financial institution for project finance as well as structure finance as a whole regionally and globally. The award will further strengthen our already established position in this category especially in energy, commodities, and export finance.’’

This is the sixteenth time the magazine has handed out its awards, which are widely regarded as the benchmarks for excellence in the global financial services industry. The 2008 awards attracted more than 600 submissions from the world’s leading banks and brokerage houses. Euromoney’s dedicated research team and awards panel then rated all the submissions on both quantitative and qualitative factors including KPIs, financial ratios and innovation over the 12-month period to decide the award winners.

In addition to receiving the ‘Best Project Finance House in the Middle East’, BNP Paribas also received the following awards from Euromoney this year: ‘Best Bank Western Europe; Best Equity Derivatives House; Best Credit Derivatives House; Best Bank: France; Best Investment Bank: France, and Best Debt House: Hungary.’


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EDITOR’S NOTE
BNP Paribas has been operating in the Gulf for over 35 years with a presence in five Gulf countries (Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia). The teams also cover Oman and Yemen. BNP Paribas in the region accounts for approximately 550 employees. The Regional Management is based in Bahrain which is the regional hub for BNP Paribas in the Gulf.


About BNP Paribas
BNP Paribas (www.bnpparibas.com) is a European leader in global banking and financial services and is one of the 4 strongest banks in the world according to Standard & Poor’s. The group is present in over 85 countries, with almost 168,000 employees, including 129, 500 in Europe. The group holds key positions in three major segments: Corporate and Investment Banking, Asset Management & Services and Retail Banking. Present throughout Europe in all of its business lines, the bank’s two domestic markets in retail banking are France and Italy. BNP Paribas also has a significant presence in the United States and strong positions in Asia and the emerging markets.