Fraport Greece Honored for Best Transport Infrastructure Deal

Fraport Greece’s CEO Alexander Zinell and CFO Vangelis Baltas at the award event in London.

Fraport Greece has received the award for the “Best Transport Infrastructure” deal in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the Project Finance Awards 2017, which was recently organized by the EMEA Finance magazine.

Nominated by parties including banks, sponsors, legal and financial advisers, and chosen by the EMEA Finance editorial team, the winners and transactions constitute the most innovative finance achievements made across CEE.

In the case of Fraport Greece, for the successful completion of the project involving 14 Greek regional airports, sponsors Fraport AG and Copelouzos Group invested 750 million euros equity, while the partnership of leading financial institutions signed with Fraport Greece a long-term funding up to about 1 billion euros.

The prestigious award was received by Fraport Greece CEO Alexander Zinell and CFO Vangelis Baltas during a ceremony recently held at the “The Law Society” in London.

“Together with the 750-million-euro equity injected by our shareholders, our partners from the financing sector supported us in realizing one of the most complex projects in the industry, while sending a strong message of support to the Greek Economy and Fraport Greece,” Vangelis Baltas said.

“In order for the vision of the management of the 14 airports to be realized it also took thousands of work hours and high level collaboration between the sponsors, the financing institutions and all of as at Fraport Greece… Today’s award is another affirmation of how the mechanics of financing this project constitute a best practice,” he added.

The publisher of EMEA Finance magazine Christopher Moore also spoke about the importance of the 40-year funding of Fraport Greece’s concession of the 14 Greek regional airports for the Greek economy.

“This 1-billion-euro transaction represents one of Greece’s largest direct foreign investments made in recent years and is a bell-weather deal for future transactions of its kind,” he noted.

The consortium of banks supporting the best transport infrastructure deal in the CEE region includes Alpha Bank, Black Sea Trade and Development Bank, European Investment Bank, (EIB), EBRD and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).