RLPC-Russian Norilsk's loan increased to $1.5 bln-banker

LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - Russian miner Norilsk Nickel's (GMKN.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) three-year syndicated loan has been increased to $1.5 billion from $1.3 billion after Royal Bank of Scotland joined the deal as a bookrunner, bringing the total number of bookrunners to eight, a banking source said on Thursday.

As previously reported, the remaining seven bookrunners Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Calyon, ING, Societe Generale, SMBC, UniCredit HVB and WestLB launched syndication of the deal last week.

Proceeds will partly refinance a $6 billion loan it secured last year to back its acquisition of Canadian nickel mining company, LionOre Mining International.

The deal is split between a $750 million secured pre-export financing, a secured $550 million revolving credit and an unsecured $200 million revolving credit, the source said.

Originally, the loan was split between a $650 million secured loan, a secured $500 million revolver and an unsecured $150 million tranche.

The secured tranches pay a margin of 85 basis points (bps) over LIBOR, while the unsecured tranche pays 100 bps.

The original $6 billion loan was split between a $2 billion, five-year pre-export financing, a $1.5 billion, three-year, dual-tranche unsecured term loan and revolving credit and a $2.5 billion, one-year unsecured facility that was not syndicated.

The deal's margins were linked to Norilsk Nickel's ratings. The pre-export financing carried a margin of 52.5 basis points (bps) over LIBOR for the first three years, stepping up to 62.5 bps thereafter, while the $1.5 billion dual tranche carried a margin of 60 bps.

Norilsk is rated Baa2 by Moody's Investors Service and BBB- by Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings.

(Reporting by Christopher Mangham; editing by Rory Channing)