Russian Railways has taken out an unsecured bilateral loan worth USD 500m from Barclays Bank PLC to finance the day-to-day activities, the company's press office reported today according to RBC. The company intends to spend the funds to finance its investment projects, as well as allow Russian Railways to decrease the weighted average interest rate on loans in foreign currencies.
As reported earlier, the company's investment program amounts to RUB 250bn (approx. USD 7.26bn), and additional borrowings are estimated at RUB 30bn (approx. USD 871m) in 2009. Russian Railways' Vice President Fyodor Andreyev announced in early February that the company was in talks on securing additional RUB 100bn (approx. USD 2.90bn).