GarantiBank International NV was the Main Sponsor of the 53rd IREPAS Conference in Amsterdam. The event took place on the 2nd and the 3rd of October, 2005 and brought together the steel industry producers, end-users, traders, related experts and service providers as well as banks. Oral Draman, Executive Director of GBI Trade Finance also made a presentation on "Trade Finance Markets" at the Conference.

As a result of the elections at the Annual General Meeting of International Forfaiting Association ("IFA") on 22-September-2005 Athens, GarantiBank International's Sema Zeyneloglu, Manager Forfaiting and Structured Trade Finance, is elected on the Main Board of IFA. Main Board of IFA is the ultimate organ overseeing the global forfaiting activity. Sema will chair the Communications Committee and will also act as the co-head of the Education Committee.

Turkish GarantiBank International, domiciled in the Netherlands, financed 3.4m tonnes of trade in steel and steel-making raw materials in the first half of 2005. Steel trade makes up a significant part of the bank's business.

Over 50% of this tonnage was steel and other ferrous raw materials from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Romania. Around 40% was related to exported coking coal from North America, Steel Business Briefing learns.

"We shall maintain our commitment to this industry, and continue providing value-added trade finance banking services for the Black Sea, Caspian and Mediterranean basin countries", a top bank executive tells SBB.

For the first half of this year, 47% of the banks's $2.5bn trade finance volume was steel-industry oriented. 22/07/05 5/11

GarantiBank was established in 1990 in Amsterdam.

The article reads: GarantiBank has expanded its commodity finance teams in Amsterdam with four fresh recruits. Tonguc Coskun, Unsal Kayikci, Onur Topal and Alena Petrukhina joined Garanti's two commodity finance departments as junior relationship managers.

Oral Draman, executive director of the trade finance group at GarantiBank International, told TFR : "As a natural consequence of more than 65% annual volume growth to $5bn in 2004, we've expanded our trade finance division. The new recruits have joined with a lot of enthusiasm, energy and willingness to learn and perform."

He adds: "We also have plans to hire additional junior staff in our structured trade finance and forfaiting departments this year."

GarantiBank recently extended its commodity finance department in Amsterdam into two mutually exclusive commodity finance units.

The first unit, headed by Sertac Kanan, will continue to provide added value to trade flows that involve steel scrap, grains, edible oil, fertilizers and chemicals. The second unit, led by Ali Arolat, will focus on providing solutions to trade flows of steam coal, steel products, semi-finished product and steel-making raw materials, excluding steel scrap, said Draman.

During 2005H1, GBI financed or facilitated an aggregate of 4.9 million metric tonnes of commodities trade, which resulted an aggregate transaction volume of USD 2.5 billion. Whereas, in 2004 total commodity tonnage financed or facilitated was approximately 9 million metric tonnes yielding USD 5 billion transaction volume.

As of first half of 2005, GarantiBank International NV ("GBI") financed or facilitated 3.4 million metric tonnes of steel and steel making raw materials trade. For entire 2004, GBI's tonnage volume related to steel and steel making raw materials was 4.9 million metric tonnes. Such steel and steel making raw materials transactions generated USD 1.2 billion transaction volume for GBI in 2005H1. The same transaction volume component for the entire 2004 was USD 2.1 billion.

Moreover, in the first half of 2005, GBI financed 1.1 million metric tonnes of Agri-business trade. These transactions generated USD 293 million transaction volume. For whole 2004, GBI's tonnage volume in agri-business was 1.8 million metric tones and generated USD 420 million transaction volume.

On 28 Jun 2005 Erhan Zeyneloglu, Executive Director Credit Division, made a presentation at "Securing Transactions in Emerging Commodity Markets: new techniques" conference held in Rotterdam by Day Robinson.

With more than 65% leap over 2003; trade finance transaction volume of GBI in 2004 was USD 5 bn. Majority of Commodity Finance deals in 2004 were ferrous metals related while loan-trading activity on the Forfaiting front gained further ground. Details of 2004 will be disclosed in our Annual Report, which is to be available in April 2005.

The Bank of New York, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd., Erste Bank der oesterreichischen Sparkassen AG, HSH Nordbank AG, Natexis Banques Populaires, Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich Aktiengesellschaft, Standard Chartered Bank, Wachovia Bank, National Association and WestLB AG, London Branch (together the "Mandated Lead Arrangers") are pleased to announce that the new US$100 million 364-day syndicated term loan facility (the "Facility") for GarantiBank International N.V. was signed on 25th February 2005 in Amsterdam. Following a successful syndication the Borrower elected to increase the Facility from its launch amount of US$75 million to US$100 million.

The terms of the Facility are as follows:

In syndication a select number of banks were invited to join as a Co-Arranger (commitment of US$ 5 million and participation fee of 40bps), and as a Lead Manager (commitment of US$2.5 million and participation fee of 35bps).

The following Banks joined the transaction:

Fitch Ratings-London-24 January 2005: Fitch Ratings, the international rating agency, has today revised Netherlands-based GarantiBank International NV‘s ("GBI") Long-term rating Outlook to Positive from Stable. At the same time the agency has affirmed GBI‘s ratings at Long-term 'BB+' Short-term 'B', Individual 'C/D' and Support '4'.

The Positive Outlook reflects the improvement in GBI's profitability and risk profile. Fitch expects Turkish risk on the balance sheet to further decline and the bank's core profitability to continue its improving trend.

GBI's profitability improved during 2004, driven by a combination of higher core revenues and improved efficiency. Fitch further notes that GBI has been successful in diversifying its risk exposure away from Turkey in recent years. However, given Turkey's sub-investment grade Long-term rating of 'BB-' (BB minus), GBI's Turkish exposure is still relatively high at 45% of total assets at end-2004.

The Long-term, Short-term and Individual ratings reflect GBI's healthy asset quality, growing and resilient retail deposit base, comfortable capitalisation and enhanced risk management systems. The ratings also take into account the bank's small size, its good but specialised trade finance franchise and reduced, albeit still high Turkish risk exposure.

GBI is 100%-owned by Garanti Bank Turkey (also see separate Fitch report on www.fitchratings.com), a premier Turkish private sector bank, which, in turn, is majority owned by Dogus Group (also see separate Fitch report), a Turkish conglomerate. GBI focuses on trade finance, private banking and retail deposit taking.

On 21/December/2004, GBI launched the upgraded version of its website. The website not only explains how we can add value to your trade flows but also includes a link to the efficient and recently upgraded Internet Banking tool. The tool provides speed and accuracy to our Internet Banking clients regarding their administration of their accounts, transactions and portfolios without compromising security and ease of use.

Oral Draman, Executive Director of GBI Trade Finance Group, delivered a workshop to MBA students on Trade Finance Markets at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus Universiteit on 7/December/2004.

On 6/December/2004 Sema Zeyneloglu, Manager of GBI Forfaiting and Structured Trade Finance, delivered a presentation at Trade Finance in Central and Eastern Europe Conference held in Bucharest organized by Ark Group.

Trade Finance 2004 half year transaction volume has been USD 2.4 billion, an 83% increase over the same period of the last year. Such volume leap in 2004 H1 is partly a result of the strong upward trend in commodity prices mainly driven by China and partly due to the temporarily depressed transaction volume of 2003 H1 under the negative influences of SARS epidemic and military operations in Iraq.

The Bank of New York, HSH Nordbank AG, Natexis Banques Populaires, Rabobank International, Standard Chartered Bank, Wachovia Bank, National Association and WestLB AG (acting through its London Branch) together (the "Joint Arrangers") are pleased to announce that the new US$75 million 364-day syndicated term loan facility (the "Facility") for GarantiBank International N.V. was signed on 30 January 2004 in Amsterdam. Following a successful senior syndication the Borrower elected not to undertake a wider syndication and to increase the Facility from its launch amount of US$60 million to US$75 million at signing.

The terms of the Facility are as follows:

In senior syndication banks were invited to join as a co-arranger with a commitment of US$5 million with participation fees of 45bps. In addition to Joint Arrangers, American Express Gmbh, Emirates Bank International , Erste Bank, and WGZ-Bank joined as co-arrangers in addition to which Union Bank of California joined as a Senior Lead Manager.

Roles for the Facility are as follows:

The Trade and Commodity Finance department has successfully increased its penetration on the Fertiliser market. The deals generated through that commodity reached 17% of the total Trade and Commodity Finance volume of the bank where the main origination countries are Russian Federation and Ukraine.

The head of our Forfaiting Department, Mrs Sema Zeyneloglu, has been elected as one of the 7 Board members of the IFA (International Forfaiting Association) Northern Europe Committee.

The Gazprom STF Deal for USD 325 Mio where GarantiBank International NV acted as the Senior Co-Arranger has been chosen as one of the Deals of the Year 2002 by the Trade Finance Magazine. The transaction is pick of the bunch not only for sheer magnitude, but also for being innovative.

The facility features a syndication structure with three tranches, each with a different repayment profile. These were: 1) A six year tranche corresponding to the facility's term (one year grace and a five year repayment period); 2) A six year tranche including a four year grace period; and 3) A four year tranche including a one year grace period. This flexible tranche system made the deal accessible to more traditional Russian pre-export financing investors. Banks that had been unable to consider long-term tenors could book some Gazprom risk by participating in the four year tranche. At the same time, the legal structuring of the tranches allowed Gazprom to benefit from the syndication's upside, without being affected by the diversity of the sub-facilities, and to receive a single consolidated one year grace and five year repayment facility at a single margin.

Another notable quality of the deal was the offshore positing of export proceeds. Assignment was made in favour of an English trustee of the Gazprom-Transgas gas export contract's rights. Meanwhile a central bank of Russia licence made reference to the possible offshore set-off of the debt - a rare feature in a Russian pre-export finance transaction.