The consortium building Abu Dhabi's new airport terminal is close to securing a AED4 billion dirham (USD$1.1 billion) financing deal, which will be mainly sharia-compliant, banking sources said on Wednesday.
A deal would mark the second major regional project finance venture to rely on Islamic financing facilities this month.
Turkey's TAV Insaat, Dubai's Arabtec Holding and Athens-based Consolidated Contractors were awarded a USD$2.9 billion contract in June to build a mid-field terminal in the emirate.
Dubai lender Mashreq is leading the financing deal which includes First Gulf Bank, Union National Bank, Al Hilal Bank, all from Abu Dhabi, and Jordan's Arab Bank, said two banking sources close to the deal who declined to be identified.
The financing will be 80 percent sharia-compliant with the remainder secured via a conventional loan, the sources said. The four-year contractor finance facility will see all banks provide roughly equal amounts.
An official at TAV Airports confirmed the use of Islamic financing but declined to give further details on the deal.
"We are indeed using Islamic finance for our Abu Dhabi project. Details of the financing are to be released later," Burcu Geris, Project and Structured Finance Coordinator at TAV Airports, said in a statement.
TAV Insaat is a unit of Turkish builder Akfen, which holds a stake in airport operator TAV Havalimanlari.
It marks the second time this month that TAV has turned to Islamic finance to fund its joint projects in the region.
Last week, a consortium including TAV said it had secured a USD$1.2 billion sharia-compliant facility for Saudi Arabia's Medina Airport project.
