The shareholders of Romanian aluminum producer Alro Slatina approved a USD 150 million loan agreement to refinance until 2023-2024 a credit facility that it has used for technological investments over the past five years.

State-owned lender Eximbank would be the new lead creditor for Alro.

Thus, the aluminum producer rolls over a credit facility worth USD 120 mln maturing November 2023 and reschedules to February 2024 the maturity of a USD 30 mln loan. The company's extraordinary shareholder meeting approved, along with the new credit agreement, to replace the loan arranger Raiffeisen Bank International with Eximbank.

Alro's revenues in the first half of the year dropped by nearly 10% compared to the same period of 2019, to RON 1.36 billion (EUR 280 mln), mainly due to lower commodity prices and demand amid the crisis. However, in terms of profitability, the company showed substantial improvement. Thus, its net profit soared by 218% year-on-year to RON 253.7 mln (EUR 52 mln) in the first half of the year.

"We have managed to successfully overcome a difficult first half of the year, to keep all our production units fully operational and to keep unaffected the activity of Alro and the other subsidiaries," says the company's management in the half-year report.

iulian@romania-insider.com

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