Horizon Capital, a Swiss investment management company, has unveiled a new sustainable commodity trade finance fund, which it will launch on April 5.
The fund, which will start at US$10-15mn in size, will finance commodity trade transactions that contribute to at least one of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), with eligible borrowers having to demonstrate strong environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance.
“We’ll put an ESG overlay on various steps of the investment process,” says Sébastien Max, managing partner at Horizon Capital, who tells
GTR that the fund will explicitly exclude energy financing and focus solely on agriculture and metals.
Swiss-based energy company MET Group has secured a new €120mn medium-term loan from a group of five banks.
The committed three-year facility refinances a previous €50mn facility from May 2018 and will be used for general corporate purposes. MET has the option of increasing the size of the facility to €150mn through an accordion feature.
The four lenders involved in the previous deal – Citi, GPB International, OTP Bank and UniCredit – have all signed on once again. They’re joined by ING on this year’s loan agreement, with OTP serving as facility agent.
Commenting on the deal, Marc Pfefferli, group treasurer at MET Group, says: “MET has once again demonstrated a strong relationship with its core banking partners. We significantly increased the facility from its previous amount and are in the process to add other lenders through the accordion option.
AlmaStone, an alternative trade and supply chain finance provider active in the soft commodities sector, has made two new hires as it works to expand its origination capabilities in Africa and Latin America.
Sam West joined as head of origination for Africa last week, and is tasked with developing the firm’s existing portfolio on the continent, with a focus on corporates in the agri-business and soft commodities space.
West moves from FBN Bank UK, where he held several different soft commodities, trade finance and business development roles over the course of the past decade. Most recently, he had been serving as the bank’s head of soft commodities since late 2019.
HSBC has announced two senior moves after appointing Burcu Senel CEO of the bank’s operations in New Zealand, effective March 8. Senel, former global head of sustainable trade finance and global head of trade finance propositions within the bank’s global trade and receivables finance (GTRF) business in London, will run HSBC New Zealand from Auckland. .
GTR can reveal.
Shares in the Singapore-based fintech plummeted in January after US short sellers claimed nearly two-thirds of Kratos transactions between June 2019 and August 2020 were carried out by companies
The short seller report, published by newly formed hedge fund Phase 2 Partners, said it analysed records of Triterras transactions that are stored on the Ethereum blockchain, and produced data on who is using the platform, what cargo is being traded and the value of those sales.
Based on that research, it claimed that the number of active participants on the Kratos platform was far lower than the 66 reported by Triterras – estimating a total of 39 once subsidiaries are eliminated.