Aston Martin attracts Islamic financing

Syndication has closed on a £225m Islamic financing facility to back the leveraged buyout of Aston Martin. The deal is the first European LBO to be backed entirely by Islamic financing. WestLB are bookrunners on the deal.

The facility backs a £522m deal from last year driven by a consortium comprised of incoming chairman David Richards, and Kuwaiti investors Investment Dar and Adeem Investment & Wealth Management, who bought Aston Martin from Ford.

The facility breaks down into a £200m eight-year term loan and a £25m eight-year revolver. Syndication was routine and the pricing and structure of the deal were par for the course in what is a cyclical market. Like a lot of Gulf borrowings recently, a mixture of European, Gulf and Asian lenders participated.

Lloyds TSB, Bahrain Islamic Bank, Standard Bank and European Islamic Investment Bank joined as mandated lead arrangers ahead of the launch of syndication. Qatar National Bank and Europe Arab Bank joined as mandated lead arrangers and Kuwait Finance House (Malaysia), Bank Mualamat Malaysia and Banque BIA came in as managers during syndication.