Sponsors Nurol Holding, Ozaltin, Makyol, Astaldi and Gocay signed $4.956 billion of debt for the Gebze-Izmir toll road on 5 June 2015, which refinances previous phases and will fund the remainder of the project.

There are nine banks with equal tickets that provided the $4.956 billion senior debt, which has a tenor of 15 years, with five years grace period before repayments begin. Deutsche Bank, as one of these nine lenders, is syndicating its portion of the debt, as IJGlobal reported in May, but it is providing the first drawdown itself.

Financial close is scheduled for in a month. The banks lending are:

• Akbank
• Deutsche Bank
• Finansbank
• Garanti Bank
• Halkbank
• Isbank
• Vakifbank
• Yapi Kredi
• Ziraat Bank

This financing package also includes $1.4 billion of equity investment from the sponsors for 78% leverage.

The package refinances debt for the first two phases and funds construction of the third which is the largest part of the road. Overall the project is to deliver over 400km of motorway between Gebze (near Istanbul) and Izmir on the Aegean coast.

The grantor Directorate General of Highways (KGM) signed the build, operate and transfer concession, which expires in July 2035, with project company Otoyol Yaritim ve Isletme in April 2009 . Phase one is due to be completed by March 2016, with the whole of the motorway scheduled to enter operations in the second half of 2019.

Sponsor Nurol Holding told IJGlobal that the initial toll revenues are forecast at $650 million per year, rising to an average of $850 million.

The sponsors obtained a debt guarantee in the event of termination from the Turkish Treasury, rather than from KGM. Of the forecasted revenue, 52% was guaranteed by the state under the concession agreement.

In March 2013 the sponsors closed $1.4 billion of debt priced at 575bp from these eight domestic lenders for phase one, before then closing $600 million debt for phase two priced at 635bp in 2014.

Phase one included the 3.3km long and 1.7km wide suspension bridge over the Gulf of Izmit, which will be the fourth largest in world, and 53km of road between Gebze and Orhangazi. Phase two is 25km of road from Orhangazi to Bursa. The third phase is the largest, a 301km stretch between Bursa and Izmir.

The new road should halve journey times between Istanbul and Izmir, which now on average take more than eight hours.

The legal advisers were Herguner Bilgen Ozeke for the borrowers and Clifford Chance with Verdi for the lenders.