JB's weekly round-up - 3 March 2014
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That was the week that was…
Spread the word…..tell your team….
The TXF News website is a free, regularly updated service.Do tell your colleagues about this free access and let them benefit too!
Hanging on the telephone
No, I’m not back doing the music quiz – sorry – my coffers of Z$100 trillions are somewhat depleted. Sigh! – poor again! But congratulations to Deutsche Bank, Credit Agricole CIB and Société Générale CIB who have been appointed as mandated lead arrangers on the two new export credit agency-backed financings for Saudi Arabian telecoms company Mobily (TXF 27 February 2014). The two financings amount to $560 million, and involve support from EKN and SEK in Sweden and Finnvera and FEC in Finland.
Crucial order for SMS Siemag
Germany’s SMS Siemag has won a crucial commercial contract for the construction and supply of equipment for a silicon manufacturing plant with Mississippi Silicon in the US (TXF 24 February 2014). The commercial contract is backed by a $109 million loan from KfW IPEX-Bank, with a tenor of 10.5 years. A number of other German exporters are involved and KfW IPEX-Bank informs TXF that various parts of the deal are covered by Euler Hermes.
Commodity traders keep the roundabout turning
On the commodity finance roundabout, Swiss-headquartered agricultural commodity trading group Ecom Agroindustrial Asia has launched a $300 million, 364-day revolving credit facility (RCF) into the market (TXF 28 February 2014). Coordinating mandated lead arrangers on the RCF are: DBS, ING Bank and Standard Chartered. A bank meeting was held in Singapore this week. Take a look at the whole article to see what the pricing is and how that has changed over the past three years.
Last year, Ecom Agroindustrial set the wheels in motion to buy the trading arm of Armajaro. The acquisition has yet to be finalised, but will give Ecom a lot of extra clout logistically, particularly in the global cocoa market. Check out what I wrote last year (TXF 13 November 2013).
Bunge jumping with new revolver
Elsewhere in the agri-trading fraternity, Bunge Finance Europe is in the market with a three-year, $1.75 billion revolving credit facility (RCF) (TXF 24 February 2014). The syndication is moving ahead well, and has 16 banks acting as bookrunning mandated lead arrangers.
Bunge recently posted their results for 2013 in their US securities & exchange commission filings. Parts of it make very interesting reading – but watch out, it’s 207 pages long with a 10-point Times New Roman typeface, going down to 6.5 point (that is tiny!) for some of that small print stuff! Strewth, only for people like me or the die-hards.
On the march
People moves over the course of last week has seen Royal Bank of Scotland appoint Ray Zabarte as its new head of trade services(TXF 24 February 2014). Ray was previously at Barclays.
Elsewhere, Malta-headquartered FIMBank have appointed Thomas Degen to their senior management team. Thomas joins the bank from Trammo Group (formerly Transammonia).
And finally...
If you have any news that you wish to impart at any time, please do get in contact with me or Hesham Zakai at TXF (Hesham.zakai@txfmedia.com). As those of you who know me well will appreciate, me and my colleagues at TXF are always happy to work with you with sensible reporting of intelligence and news.
That’s all folks.
Cheers – mine’s a pint of Oakham Citra – the finest ale in the world!
JB
