The Istanbul Grand Airport (IGA) consortium and a consortium of six banks signed project financing on October 19th for the Istanbul's new airport. 

The total project investment is estimated at €6 billion (US$6.81 billion). The two parties have signed a €4.5 billion (US$5.11 billion) loan deal to develop the new airport. The remaining €1.5 billion (US$1.7 billion) will be provided on the consortium's equity.

A total of three state-owned banks, Ziraat, Halkbank and Vak?fbank, will provide about a 70 percent of the total project financing package, and the remaining 30 percent has been provided by three private banks, Finansbank, Garanti Bankas? and Denizbank.

Istanbul New Airport or Third Airport is an international airport under construction in Arnavutköy district on the European side of Istanbul, Turkey. The airport is poised to be the largest airport in the world, with a 150 million passenger annual capacity. It will be the third international airport to be built in Istanbul, however, Istanbul Atatürk Airport will be closed down once the new airport is operational.

The project is being developed by Cengiz-Kolin-Limak-Mapa-Kalyon OGG consortium, a joint venture of Turkish companies, that won a tender process for the project in May 2013. At that time, the selected team agreed to pay the state €22.1 billion over 25 years starting in 2017.

The preferred bidder has established the Istanbul Grand Airport company (IGA) to develop the airport, which is expected to be operational by the first quarter of 2018.