The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has provided Africa’s first ever certified green loan to South Africa’s Absa Bank to fund renewable energy projects in the country.
The IFC, the World Bank’s private investment arm, will lend Absa US$150mn, which the bank will onlend to finance “biomass and other renewable energy projects” in South Africa, an IFC statement says.
The statement, which does not provide further details on the nature of the projects, says the deal is the first loan in Africa to comply with the Loan Market Association’s Green Loan Principles, a set of high-level standards for environmentally friendly lending.
Traxys, a Luxembourg-based metals and natural resources trader, has refinanced and extended its revolving credit facility (RCF) in an oversubscribed deal that saw the entry of new banks into the syndication.
The deal, a US$1.33bn multicurrency syndicated RCF, was signed last week, and replaces a US$1.29bn RCF that closed last year.
The facility is structured in four tranches: a one-year committed borrowing base tranche, a three-year committed borrowing base tranche, a one-year uncommitted borrowing base tranche, and a one-year committed unsecured tranche. Each tranche includes a one-year extension option. In addition, the facility has a US$250mn accordion feature.
Greensill, which
filed for insolvency in March, has faced widespread criticism for allegedly lending against hypothetical invoices – in some cases from companies that
However, giving evidence to the UK parliament’s Treasury Committee on May 11, founder and chief executive Lex Greensill was asked by Labour MP Siobhan McDonagh about lending in situations where there “was no inventory and there was no invoice, there was no evidence of any activity or business whatsoever”.
Greensill replied: “A condition of our facilities… is that they must do business with the customer. They must have a history to support that, and the data to support that.”
Singapore-based GUUD Finance has signed a working capital agreement with Australian renewable fuel producer Just Biodiesel, marking the trade technology company’s first foray into green energy. The two companies signed a short-term US$4mn working capital agreement on May 5, which will see GUUD Finance support the process of purchasing raw materials, converting those into fuel .
Trade credit managing general agent (MGA) Anvil has shifted its focus towards green financing and relaunched under the new name of Tierra Underwriting.
Texel Group, the MGA’s owner since it was initially set up in 2016, has moved to refocus the credit insurance underwriter towards green finance and brought in Andrew Beechey as managing director to lead the transition.
Tierra is expected to formally launch in June and will initially focus on providing credit insurance to renewable transactions in the project finance sector, though the firm plans to expand into corporate and trade finance once established.
“We’re looking at supporting long-term, renewable energy infrastructure. Banks financing those projects could buy credit insurance from Tierra to either help them do more in those projects, or to mitigate some of the risk,” Beechey tells