JB's weekly round up 11 August 2014

Welcome to the weekly round-up of the TXF news service

That was the week that was
 
 Come on board for the SIBOS Special Report
TXF is in the process of producing its 2014 SIBOS Special Report. The report will look at many aspects of the short-term trade finance cycle and related services. In the process, we will be seeking comments from some of the major practitioners in trade, working capital and receivables financing. If your institution or company would like to have a say in the report, or undertake thought-leadership/sponsored editorial, then please contact TXF’s commercial director, Dominik Kloiber. The report will also be distributed at the TXF Trade, Supply Chain and Working Capital Optimisation conference taking place in Munich on 9-10 December 2014.
 
 Big changes at the top in Santander
Santander has been making some changes to its top management within trade. The first of these is the announcement that José Luis Calderón is the new global head of global transaction banking (GTB). He is based in Madrid and will take over many of the duties formerly overseen by Jorge Tapia, who previously had the title of global head of trade, export and commodity finance. Jorge has now been promoted to deputy CEO of Santander Asia-Pacific. Congratulations to both and good luck in your new jobs. Further detail about these roles can be found in the news story. TXF also anticipates some further announcements from Santander come early September.
 
 Barclays makes regional head appointments
Barclays is another bank that announced some changes to its leadership team last week, albeit regional and within working capital. In the first instance, Brandon Feng has been appointed as head of trade and working capital for North and South-East Asia. In the other development, Jeroen Reyes Stolker has been promoted to head of trade and working capital for the Middle East and India. Both will be reporting to Baihas Baghdadi, the managing director and head of trade and working capital, at Barclays. See more in the news report. Again, congratulations gentlemen.
 
Given all the changes in short-term trade at various banks over the past year, it looks like there will be quite a few new faces at SIBOS in Boston this year. 
 
 Uralkali secures longest tenor yet
There is always something different, somewhere in the world, within commodity finance to keep us interested. The other day, when discussing problems in financing Russian producers, a commodity banker uttered to me the tired old cliché that we need trouble in the market to keep deal prices up (what deals?) and keep out the riff-raff hanger-on banks. Yeah, yeah, yeah! But – we certainly don’t need the situation that we have with Russia at the moment. Too much business is being lost and the situation is deteriorating for many companies – both Russian and foreign.
 
Anyway, some Russian producers have naturally been turning to domestic banks for funds, and in one such recent instance potash producer Uralkalisecured a $250 million line of credit from Promsvyazbank. The deal is unsecured and has an amazing 10-year tenor. Find out more about this by reading what I wrote last week.
 
 Gunvor in hyper-activity in Europe
Well something has got to keep commodity bankers busy, and good old Gunvor came racing back into the market with a $290 million off balance sheet revolving credit facility. See more about the deal, and who was involved here. This deal came hard on the heels of its $500 million refinancing for the Ingolstadt refinery in Bavaria. The $290 million was achieved, of course, with significant oversubscription by a market ever hungry for deals.
 
 Acquisition loan secured by Osum Oil Sands 
In another sector of energy commodities, Canada’s Osum Oil Sands has just closed a deal with Barclays and Goldman Sachs amounting to $210 million to part fund the acquisition of the Orion Oil Sands Project from Shell Canada. Pricing, tenor and lots more detail can be discovered if you dig into our news report. The transaction also contains a separate $15 million secured revolving loan facility for working capital purposes.
 
 Nexi agri first with SMBC’s Amaggi financing
Japanese agency Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (Nexi) came into new territory recently when it provided insurance cover for a $200 million loan signed by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) for Brazil’s Amaggi Exportação e Importação (Amaggi). This is the first time that Nexi has provided insurance for an agricultural financing transaction. The deal has strategic interest for Japan – given the supply of grain and overall food security – hence the Nexi involvement. Find out more about the deal here. 
 
 Featured deal: Cameron LNG finalises project financing
One of the biggest deals to come into the energy financing market was finalised last week, when the Cameron LNG project in Louisiana USA was signed.
 
Lead sponsor partner, Sempra Energy, is seeing through the financing commitments for the project which total $7.4 billion and will be provided by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (Nexi) and a group of 29 commercial banks.

The total project cost is estimated at approximately $10 billion. See more detail in the news report here or from tagmydeals.
 

 Afreximbank funding for Econet expansion
Elsewhere in the export credit agency and development bank world, the African Export-Import Bank has arranged a $150 million financing facility for the Mauritius-based telecommunications company Econet Wireless Global (Econet). The deal is a particularly important one for the sector, and a number of other developmental financing institutions have also come into the transaction. Find out which ones here. Afreximbank acted as the global coordinator and mandated lead arranger.

 KfW IPEX finances port equipment for OOCL
In a great export deal for Germany’s Terex Port Solutions based in Dussseldorf, KfW IPEX-Bank last week signed an $81 million loan agreement with Hong Kong-headquartered port operator Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), to support the sale of Terex port loading equipment. See our news report for detail on the tenor and export credit cover. OOCL is putting the equipment into operation at the Long Beach Container Terminal (LBCT) in California. The equipment being supplied by Terex is also the first of its kind exported outside Europe. Good deal, guys!

 And finally… the Perseid meteor shower
While many of you in the Northern Hemisphere relax and enjoy the summer, don’t forget that the Perseid meteor shower peaks between 10-13 August – but can still be seen some days after the 13th. A fantastic spectacle, and one I used to always enjoy when on holiday in deepest Cornwall in the south-west of England – but not this year for me. It is particularly good of course when you are in an area where there is no or little light pollution.
 
This year though, you have to put up with a wonderful supermoon – and that is both Northern and Southern Hemisphere of course, although the moon is now on the wane. (A supermoon – or perigee moon - by the way, is when the moon is at its closest to earth and can be up to 30% bigger than normal. And the full moon was on the 10th). The perfect rutting time of course!  Anyway, back to star gazing. It’s best after midnight, and even better as the night goes on. Make sure that the waning moon is behind you or hidden by trees etc, and relax in a nice chair or recliner and look north-east in the sky. Keep gazing into space and you should see around 60 to 100 shooting stars (étoiles filantes) every hour. And don’t forget to make a wish each time.
 
That’s all folks.

Cheers,
JB