Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) has announced the close of a $300 million dual tranche (2-Year and 3-Year) club facility. This was arranged by six initial mandated lead arrangers (IMLA’s) and Bookrunners who committed funding of $50 million each to the facility.
The profits realised will be used for general corporate purposes including the facilitation of trade in Africa. “AFC’s long term vision is to help address Africa’s infrastructure deficit and ensure sustainable economic growth for the continent. We are encouraged by the confidence that our lenders have placed in us,” Banji Fehintola, Senior Vice President & Treasurer, Africa Finance Corporation commented.
According to an official statement, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd; Citibank N.A; Deutsche Bank AG; FirstRand Bank Limited; Standard Bank of South Africa Limited; Standard Chartered Bank are acting as the Lead Arrangers and Bookrunners.
Preceding the initial funding, a secondary market syndication of the facility was arranged to support trade finance and investment across the continent. It was confronted by a high demand for the credit, with new commitments of $336.5 million obtained from 16 lenders across various geographies such as Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
The facility was therefore more than two times oversubscribed during the primary and secondary market process, with AFC receiving total commitment of $636.5 million from a total of 22 lenders.
The Nigerian-based multilateral investment institution is made up of specialist industry expertise. It also offers financial and technical advisory, project structuring, project development and risk capital to address Africa’s infrastructure development needs and drive sustainable economic growth.
“We believe that the well documented need for bridging the infrastructure investment divide across Africa will provide the opportunity to apply AFCs differentiated model of providing long-term infrastructure financing and value added infrastructure asset project development expertise, to generate real value for our investors and stakeholders,” said Banji.
