With construction of Turkey's third Bosporus bridge about 25% done, its consortium has secured $2.3 billion of Turkish bank loans to complete the build-own-operate deal's project financing. The roughly 2.2-km-long bridge will cross the Black Sea mouth of the Bosporus waterway between Garipçe and Poyrazköy about 35 km north of Istanbul. Work began early last year and should end in 2016. Bankers finalized the final piece of funding on May 27.
The project consortium, two-thirds owned by Istanbul IC Içtas Construction, Istanbul, is financing construction with 20% of its shareholders' capital plus the loans. Astaldi Group, Rome, owns the other third of the consortium.