EIB loans Grimaldi EUR 81 mln for 4 new cruise ferries

The EIB and UniCredit Corporate Banking have signed a EUR 81 mln loan agreement with Italy’s Atlantica SpA di Navigazione (Grimaldi Group) aimed at expanding its Mediterranean fleet with four new cruise ferries.
The loan will be advanced through UniCredit Corporate Banking as part of a total credit line of EUR 250 mln made available by the EIB to the Grimaldi Group.
This credit line, with a term of 15 years, will be deployed to co-finance the four new cruise ferries ordered from Fincantieri with a total value of EUR 600 mln.
The first tranche of EUR 81 mln will fund the acquisition of the "Cruise Barcelona", which will begin serving the Civitavecchia-Barcelona route in mid-September 2008.
These are the largest freight/passenger ships ever used in the Mediterranean that will be able to carry 2140 passengers and about 187 trailers and 215 cars.
"This project is also in line with the (European) Commission’s policy of promoting shipping, to help curb road traffic and rebalance the different modal shares, with beneficial effects for the environment and in terms of reducing traffic,” said Dario Scannapieco, EIB Vice-President with responsibility for financing operations in Italy, Malta and the western Balkans.
“On the Civitavecchia-Barcelona route they will cut CO2 emissions by 40% compared with road transport for freight and air transport for passengers,” added Emanuele Grimaldi, joint managing director of the Grimaldi Group.
Founded in 1947, the Naples-based Group owns and operates a fleet of more than 100 vessels, making it the world’s leading operator of ships carrying cars and other roll-on/roll-off (ro/ro) cargo. In 2007, the Grimaldi Group recorded a turnover in excess of EUR 2.5 bln. In recent years, Grimaldi has invested more than EUR1.5bn in the motorways of the sea, from the Baltic Sea to the whole of the Mediterranean.