02 March 2014 – The consortium of Ecobank Capital and Africa Link Capital arranges FCFA 130 billion (260 million U.S. dollars) financing for the Road Maintenance Program of the Road Maintenance Fund (Fonds d’Entretien Routier ‘FER’) of Côte d’Ivoire.
Ecobank Capital, the investment banking arm of the Ecobank Group, the leading pan-African bank, announces that it has successfully structured and raised, as Co- Arranger with the Ivorian investment bank Africa Link Capital, a facility of FCFA 130 billion equivalent to US $ 260 million (the “Facility”) to finance the Road Maintenance Program 2013-2015 of the FER.
This success was made official by a signing ceremony held on Thursday, 20 February 2014, in the presence of technical and financial supervisors of the FER and banks participating in the syndication.
The Facility is a structured and innovative financing scheme based on a set of resources allocated to the FER, including the Unique Specific Tax (TSU) on the consumption of petroleum products, patents / licenses and car tax discs.
The Facility includes a combination of short and medium term loans structured as follows:
Tranche A (short term loan), representing one third (1 /3) of the Facility, payable over 2 years at a rate of 7.00 % excluding taxes and, Tranche B (medium-term loan), representing two-thirds (2/3) of the Facility, repayable over five years at a rate of 8.00 % excluding taxes.
This combination of short and medium term facilities was tailored to fit the need to rebuild in a short time the response capacity of the FER.
Seven (7) banks participated in the syndication that was oversubscribed by 110%: Ecobank Group for FCFA 45.6 billion (USD 91.2 million), the United Bank for Africa Group (UBA) for FCFA 19.2 billion (USD 38.3 million), Société Générale for FCFA 18.2 billion (USD 26.5 million), Attijariwafa Bank Group for FCFA 18.2 billion (USD 36.5 million), Group Bank of Africa (BOA) for FCFA 18.2 billion (36 5 million USD) , BNP Paribas Group for FCFA 5.9 billion (USD 12 million) and finally BGFI Bank Group for 4.6 billion FCFA (9.1 million USD).