Reversing the charges: AT&T's ECA-backed debut
US telecoms conglomerate AT&T has raised a $1.5 billion EKN-covered loan – the borrower's first ECA facility and the largest ECA-backed technology, media and telecoms deal into the US to date.
US telecoms conglomerate AT&T has raised a $1.5 billion EKN-covered loan – the borrower's first ECA facility and the largest ECA-backed technology, media and telecoms deal into the US to date.
Sponsors of the 216MW Northwind offshore wind farm in the Belgian North Sea closed a €525 million ($596 million) ECA-backed refinancing last month - more than halving the price of the original senior debt.
Sponsors of the 800MW third phase of the Dubai solar park closed a $700 million soft mini-perm earlier this month - the largest Middle East solar deal to date to go shariah-compliant.
Rock Rail's latest rolling stock financing is its largest to date. Priced competitively at just over 200bp, and over a very long tenor, the deal has proven popular with alternative lenders despite changes to UK rolling stock procurement regulation.
In the latest edition of law firm Sullivan & Worcester's Trade Finance Breakfast Seminars, partner Geoffrey Wynne discusses the pros and cons of L/C's
With many of the issues that dogged Egypt's solar FiT Round 1 fixed, DFIs that were forced to pull out of the first round are back as serious lending prospects for Round 2.
We caught up with Rotimi Thomas, head of market development in sub-Saharan Africa for Gas 2 Power, to talk about how Siemens can work closer with ECAs and project developers to devise new tools to move deals beyond the current stalemate of ‘no sovereign guarantees, no ECA coverage’ in sub-Saharan Africa.
Changes that could be made to make ECA export finance more simple and accessible - as voiced by you the market
In the latest edition of law firm Sullivan & Worcester's Trade Finance Breakfast Seminars, partner Joel Telpner discusses current developments involving fintech and blockchain initiatives.
Despite being a pathfinder project for Abu Dhabi and reliant for its cashflow on a PPA priced at one of the lowest ever tariffs for a utility-scale PV project, the financing for the Sweihan PV project did not need ECA support. Instead, the sponsors opted for a soft miniperm at a very competitive price.
A partially ECA-covered buyers credit and vendor loan, the Qaiwan deal is an example of ECA financing doing exactly what it says on the label – giving lenders comfort to offer debt to a borrower in a very high risk geographic market.
TXF caught up with Matilda Arhin, international business development consultant at the Ghana International Chamber of Commerce, to find out more about promoting SMEs, the difficulties in accessing local bank financing, and working with the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI).
TXF caught up with Catherine-Candice Koffman, head of infrastructure & telecommunications at Nedbank, to talk about addressing the infrastructure backlog in Africa and the increasing importance of working with multilateral and international banking partners.
An untied ECA-backed facility and not a US lender in sight, Lotte Chemical leveraged its existing lender relationships and pulled off a competitively priced project facility despite unforeseen hurdles.
Financial close on Trianel Windpark Borkum II has set a new benchmark low for the cost of German offshore wind debt. Although structured under the old EEG regime, the deal is still good news for future borrowers as Germany begins the transition to zero subsidy offshore wind.
TXF caught up with Denis Denya, executive vice-president of finance treasury & banking services at Afreximbank, to find out more about achieving the policy bank’s $40 billion deal pipeline.
A debut ECA-covered facility for National Grid and a rare example of an ECA financing adding value for a sophisticated investment grade credit, the North Sea Link financing is almost certain to become the template for future European interconnector projects.
Despite a low oil price environment and ratings pressure on the sovereign, state-owned Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company (Orpic) closed the largest ECA-backed project financing into the country to date – and under an accelerated timetable.
A first for Reliance in terms of debt volume and vessel type, its partially ECA-covered VLEC post-delivery financing ticked all the lender and borrower boxes.
India Exim has extended a $1.6 billion loan to the Bangladesh India Friendship Power Company for the $2 billion 2x600MW coal-fired super critical Maitree power project in Bangladesh.
Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) debuted in the pre-export finance market last year with a $4 billion five-year facility – the biggest financing into Oman to date and the first pre-export loan in the Middle East to be backed by a Ministry of Finance guarantee.
In the latest edition of law firm Sullivan & Worcester's Trade Finance Breakfast Seminars, partner Mark Norris discusses what the impact of Brexit means for the terms of trade in and outside the EU.
Despite Angola and most of Angola LNG’s sponsors being downgraded during negotiation of a five-year $1.79 billion loan, the structured medium term corporate borrowing closed in April 2016. The deal is one of the largest energy loans into Africa to date and one of the largest in oil and gas in 2016.
Saudi Arabia has finally made its first major step to reach its renewable procurement target of 9.5GW by 2023 as the names of pre-qualified project bidders under Round 1 of the MEINR renewables programme emerge.
In September 2016, despite a BB- rating Russo-Swiss agrochemical producer EuroChem closed a tightly priced $800 million pre-export finance (PXF) facility, slicing 50bp off its cost of PXF debt and setting a new benchmark for similarly rated Russian borrowers in the same sector.
Led by domestic banks and with no DFI support, the Old Harbour power project financing in Jamaica is testament to the ingenuity of local lenders.
In the past three months’ terror attacks in France, Britain and Russia have continued to put the world on high alert. Coupled with last year’s election of US President Donald Trump and the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum vote, country risk ratings have been faced with significant changes around the world. TXF Data’s Country Risk Review reveals the latest country risk profile updates in 2017 so far.
Alba has secured commitments for an additional $700 million ECA-backed loan to part finance its Line 6 expansion project. The deal complements a $1.5 billion syndicated term loan closed last year.
The joint handling of Germany's guarantee scheme by Euler Hermes and PwC is over. In future, investment guarantees will be managed by PwC, with Euler Hermes taking sole responsibility for the export credit and united loan guarantee scheme.
Indonesia's 35GW power procurement plan was always ambitious. But PLN is much closer to delivery in 2019 than many were predicting. Teguh Harsono, senior manager of fund raising at PLN, outlines the deal pipeline for the coming year and the likely completion date for the full 35GWs.
The EIB rolled out its Trade Finance Facility 2 (TFF2) Greek SME support mechanism on Monday. TXF caught up with Guido Clary - senior banker, lending operations, South East Europe at the EIB - to find out how the new programme differs from TFF1 and whether Greek SME borrowers can expect additional support.
Solar developer FRV reached full financial close on DFI-backed financings last month to fund the construction of two of its four solar projects in Mafraq, Jordan. The highly competitive Round 2 tariffs made DFI-backing a must for both projects.
Despite a sluggish 2016 in which Asian transaction activity was down on 2015, Paul Richards, global head of export finance at ANZ, is optimistic. The bank has already closed some important financings this year and has both deals, and structuring and liquidity initiatives, in the pipeline.
Developers under Egypt’s FiT Round 2 programme are racing to secure international debt for solar power tenders by the end of the April. With revisions to key issues that prevented DFIs lending in Round 1, and a feasible ECA-backed template from Infinity 50, can Round 2 deliver where Round 1 did not?
Export finance volumes recovered in 2016. The Middle East accounted for a third of the total ECA market, power was the most popular industry for ECA-backed deals, and Japanese direct lending came back to the market.
In the latest edition of law firm Sullivan & Worcester's Trade Finance Breakfast Seminars, senior associate Hannah Fearn discusses the similarities, differences and consequences of risk sharing techniques in trade finance.
Under recent amendments to the OECD Arrangement on Export Credits, Minimum Premium Rates for cover on transactions involving high income countries were redefined. The changes up the cost of ECA cover for borrowers in Category 0 countries, while also giving non-Category 0 borrowers a significant premium advantage.
Around 15% of the global population are disabled. Of those, approximately 80% live in developing countries and 150 million are children. TXF caught up with Jane Anthony, executive director of AbleChildAfrica, with which we are very proud to have a partnership, to find out more about the charity's vital role in Africa.
The $2.1 billion 554MW shale oil-fired Attarat Power project in Jordan reached financial close last week backed by Chinese banks and Sinosure cover. Is this the beginning of a reversal in Jordan’s high cost of power feedstock?
Sponsors of the ECA/DFI-backed Northwind offshore wind farm in the Belgian North Sea are working to refinance the project's €600 million debt. The question is does pricing fall post construction and are ECAs and DFIs staying in refinancing?
Société Générale has arranged a $227 million partially K-sure-backed facility with the state-owned Oman Shipping Company. The underwritten deal is indicative of strong lender appetite for Omani sovereign risk despite the country's deteriorating credit rating.
JBIC and commercial banks, with NEXI cover, are co-financing $3.35 billion of debt to fund a 2GW expansion of the 2.64GW Tanjung Jati B coal-fired power plant in Indonesia.
The trade and commodity finance community has its say on the biggest issues in the market in our annual audience survey at TXF's Trade, Treasury and Commodity conference in Singapore.
With US wind tax credits (PTC) being cut 20% year-on-year until 2019, the turbine loan market was expected to make a comeback. A trio of wind turbine loans under full PTC closed at the end of last year - so is there life in the old turbine loan yet?
Last month energy company Woodside tapped a favourably priced $100 million EKN loan, guaranteed by GIEK and DNB, for the supply of subsea equipment to the offshore Greater Enfield Development project in Western Australia.
Two years of tight regional bank liquidity and even tighter government budgets forced many Middle East state-owned borrowers into the ECA-backed and pre-export loan markets at a time when margins jumped significantly. This year, and for the first time since the 2014 oil price slump, margins have begun to tighten again – albeit slightly.
Symptomatic of a political and trade credit insurance market with too many players chasing too little business, insurance underwriter Hiscox is pulling its trade finance business citing a lack of profitability in a 'low frequency', 'high impact' market.
Last month Acwa Power and Taekwang Power mandated banks for the $4 billion 1.2GW Nam Dinh 1 coal-fired power project in Vietnam, with the deal expected to close in two months time.
Acwa Power is weeks away from financial close on a bilaterally negotiated 18-year DFI-backed financing for the 61.3MW solar scheme at Risha in Jordan.
Cricket Valley Energy Center closed a debt and equity package last month to finance the construction of a 1.1GW greenfield power plant in Dover. The deal includes a rare 'revenue put' to give lenders added comfort.