Ciner Glass Taps Lenders Including BNP For €700 Million Plant

The Chief Executive of Ciner Glass, Gokhan Sen, recently spoke with Bloomberg about the financial support it has received to support the company’s investment to build a glass plant in Lommel, Belgium.

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(Bloomberg) — Ciner Glass has tapped banks including BNP Paribas SA for a loan to help finance the construction of its €700 million ($753 million) glass bottle plant in Belgium.

The company has begun building the plant in Belgium’s Lommel area and aims for it to become operational in 2025, said Gokhan Sen, chief executive officer of Ciner Glass, in an interview. He declined to disclose the amount of the loan.  Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Emirates NBD Bank PJSC and Deutsche Bank AG are also among the loan arrangers with BNP Paribas, said Sen.

The new loan will replace a €250 million, two-year bridge facility taken out earlier this year to finance initial work at the plant site, according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked to not be identified as the matter is private.

BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Emirates NBD declined to comment. Goldman Sachs didn’t respond to emailed questions for comment.

Ciner Glass has already spent about €72 million on the Belgian plant, where the output will be 440,000 tons a year, Sen said. The company is a unit of Turkish industrial conglomerate Ciner Group.

The plant will mostly use scrap glass as its raw material and all new output will be recyclable, said Sen.

The company also has production plans for Spain and England, said Sen, adding that land for a UK plant in Wales has been secured and the company has permission to build a facility that will have a capacity of 360,000 tons a year. Ciner has already invested £14 million ($17.8 million) in the plant, Sen said.

“We have a long-term view with investments and want to be one of the largest glass producers in the world,” he said.

Ciner Group has a presence in the energy, shipping and media industries, operating the BloombergHT television channel in Turkey under a deal with Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News.