Bank Audi Group arranged a $77 million loan to partly finance the construction of Yasemeen Hotel near Damascus in Syria. The 340-room hotel will be owned by Bena Properties, the real estate branch of Cham Holding, and it will be operated by Rotana. It is scheduled to be completed in 2012.

Basima Harb, the head of Syndication and Project Finance at Bank Audi, said that syndicating the 10-year loan involved Bank Audi Syria, Byblos Bank Syria, Qatar National Bank Syria, Banque Bemo Saudi Faransi and Fransabank Syria.

“The loan will cover 57 percent of the cost of the project, while the rest will be provided by the shareholders of Bena Company,” she said.

“The loan will be in local and foreign currencies,” she said. “The proportion of each currency and the cost of the loan remain confidential,” she said.