JAKARTA. PT Astra Sedaya Finance, a subsidiary of publicly listed conglomerate PT Astra International, secured a syndicated loan of US$180 million this week after a road show to the Middle East.

This is the first time an Indonesian company has secured a syndicated loan from Middle East banks.

The loan, which will mature after three years, was oversubscribed from its initial amount of $120 million.

The company appointed Citibank, First Gulf, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Cooperation (SMBC) as underwriters, National Bank of Abu Dhabi as mandated lead arranger and Emirates Bank NDB and Qatar National Bank as the arrangers.

"We are delighted to have banks join our facility from each location we visited -- Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai," the company's chief financial officer, Hugen Gozali, said in a press release on Thursday.

Astra Sedaya Finance sought out Middle East investors as it considered the region a new hot spot for liquidity in the loan markets, following the region's recovery after the financial crisis.

"While the Middle East and Indonesia have been trading for centuries, it is gratifying to see that in this global market era, people in this region have a great deal of interest in investing in the Indonesian growth story," said RBS country head for Qatar Gerard McHugh.

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