(Latinvex, Miami, 24 April 2024) Milbank represented a consortium of export credit agencies and international lenders in connection with the $2.5 billion project financing for the $4.5 billion expansion of the Centinela copper mine in Chile and Mexican lending company MNJ Capital on a $500 million secured credit facility; Clifford Chance advised the lenders on a $500 million secured loan to Colombian investment manager Grupo SURA; Cleary Gottlieb represented Mexican glassmaker Vitro in a $100 million term loan with Netherlands-based ING Bank; Simpson Thacher represented Brazilian technology platform Brandlovrs Inc. in connection with an equity investment round led by Brazilian venture capital firm Kaszek and Arnold & Porter advised Canada-based Vela Industries Group in the acquisition of Chile-based fleet management, machine performance, and telematics software and hardware provider Samtech. Norton Rose Fulbright advises lenders on ECA-backed financing for two new LNG-powered ‘World Class’ cruise vessels for MSC Cruises.
Mexico
Mexico Expects State Oil Giant Pemex to Pay Its Debt Without Government Help
(Yahoo News, Mexico, 3 January 2023) Mexico’s Finance Ministry expects Petroleos Mexicanos to pay debt coming due in the first quarter without government help. Refinancing debt could include but won’t be limited to bank loans, bond issuance, direct financing or financing guaranteed by export credit agencies. After providing the oil company with financial support in recent years, the Finance Ministry now wants Pemex to foot the bill itself unless it doesn’t have enough cash to do so by the end of the quarter… Pemex is the world’s most indebted oil major, with financial obligations of $105 billion by September 2022. It is under enormous financial strain as the Mexican government wants it to halt oil exports and invest in loss-making refineries — all of which while the company fails to stem long-term production declines. Mexico’s oil driller has 188 billion pesos in amortizations due in 2023 and must maintain zero net indebtedness in real terms, it said in its annual financing plan.
UKEF to forge closer trade ties with Central America
(Export Institute, Peterborough, 12 August 2021) UK Export Finance has signed a partnership with CABEI, Central America’s leading development bank, to encourage joint financing of major clean energy, infrastructure and construction projects. Trade between the UK and Central America was worth over £1.7 billion in 2020. At least £2.5bn is now available for new business in each of Guatemala, Honduras and Panama and £1.5bn for Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Countries that can benefit from the joint financing agreement include the Dominican Republic, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The UK signed a continuity trade deal with Mexico in December and started talks on a £5bn trade deal in March that promised an ‘Aztec-Brexit bounce’. However, as reported in IOE&IT Daily Update, the deal was rendered obsolete after the EU signed a more generous and comprehensive deal between its 27 members states and Mexico. According to a report from the House of Lords’ International Agreements Committee, the UK could now have to wait another three years to catch-up with the EU in trade with Mexico.
EXIM support and the Pemex Ocean fire
(Climate Change News, Broadstairs, 14 July 2021) Campaigners have called on the US to review its longstanding support for Mexico’s state-owned oil and gas company after a gas leak from one of its pipelines set the ocean on fire in the Gulf of Mexico. The US export credit agency Exim bank has provided $16.14 billion in loans and guarantees to Pemex since 1998, with recent funds going to the site of the fire. For 76 years, the company has received billions of dollars in support from the US export credit agency, the Export–Import Bank (Exim), despite warnings of safety and environmental concerns.
JBIC to lend Nissan $2B for U.S. sales financing
(Automotive News Europe, Detroit, 26 November 2020) Japan’s state-owned export credit agency has agreed to give Nissan up to $2 billion as part of a credit agreement to help it finance car sales in the U.S. The money should help Nissan to sell cars in the world’s second-biggest auto market after China by allowing it to provide customers with loans that they can repay in monthly installments. JBIC has provided loans for overseas sales financing to other automakers, including a $78 million October agreement with Honda in Brazil, and one in September for Toyota in South Africa. The latest agreement with Nissan is more than three times as much as a $582 million loan extended by JBIC in July to help Nissan finance car sales in Mexico.
Mexican ECA seals US$600mn credit facility for Covid-19 response
Bancomext, a state-owned bank and export credit agency in Mexico, has obtained a US$600mn credit facility from a syndicate of international banks that will support its response to Covid-19. Law firm Norton Rose Fulbright represented Banco Santander, Citibank and Commerzbank, the three banks that took part in the syndicate. The facility is guaranteed by the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (Miga), a member of the World Bank Group. The facility will support the bank’s funding strategy “amid a sharp contraction in export revenues, which account for nearly 40% of Mexico’s GDP. It will also provide working capital to companies across key exporting sectors of the Mexican economy, including the automotive, aeronautic, transport and logistics, tourism, manufacturing, construction and agriculture industries,” the firm said.
US EXIM notifies Congress of potential support for Pemex
EXIM, Washington, 27 August 2020) The Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) Board of Directors today unanimously voted to notify the U.S. Congress, pursuant to the law, of its consideration of two transactions that would facilitate the authorization of a $350 million general facility and $50 million small business facility (SBF) for Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex). If approved, the combined $400 million financing facilities would support an estimated 1,700 jobs in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Texas in the oilfield services industry, which has faced difficulties as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. EXIM received the applications from PEMEX for the facilities in March 2020.
See no evil: How EDC is bankrolling companies accused of bid-rigging, graft and human-rights violation
(Globe and Mail, Toronto, 4 June 2019) Export Development Canada once described itself as the country’s ‘secret trade weapon.’ But The Globe’s review of thousands of transactions reveals a pattern of secrecy and lax supervision. In Latin America, billions of dollars in Canadian government-backed loans have been funnelled to two of the region’s most notorious oil companies: the state-owned petroleum corporations of Mexico and Brazil, each riddled with frequent reports of bribery, bid-rigging and inflated contracts. In Africa, hundreds of millions of dollars in financing has been channelled to companies at the heart of South Africa’s worst postapartheid corruption scandal: the state-owned freight rail monopoly and the business empire of the infamous Gupta brothers, whose relationship with ex-president Jacob Zuma triggered a public inquiry into state corruption. And in Canada, billions of dollars in federal export loans have gone to support transactions that benefit Bombardier Inc. and SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., two companies that have been cited in corruption investigations in Asia, Africa and Europe. SNC-Lavalin’s head of compliance says the firm is still hoping to reach an out-of-court settlement on bribery, fraud charges. EDC has declared itself a leading defender of human rights, but workers groups and advocates say the Crown agency’s long-awaited new policy falls well short of what’s needed.
Liberals caught again in SNC Lavalin EDC Scandal
(Yorkton This Week, Yorkton SK, 15 May 2019) Export Development Canada (EDC), Canada’s export credit agency, was created in 1944 to promote Canadian business overseas. It has 12 offices across Canada and 19 regional offices around the world. According to CBC reports SNC Lavelin have borrowed billions of dollars since the mid 1990’s from EDC. SNC Lavalin resulted from a merger of Surveyor, Nenniger, Chenevert and Lavalin all based in Quebec in 1991 instantly becoming one of the five largest engineering/construction companies in the world. They have been doing work in countries where bribery and corruption are common practice. They conform to the culture of the country and perform with their own questionable behavior. SNC Lavalin have been working on a slippery and shady slope. Even when applying for loans, they insert unsupported contingencies which seem to infer bribery money. Their worsening reputation worldwide was highlighted in 2011 and 2012 with high profile executives being arrested and jailed in Switzerland, the corporate head office of their construction division. Corruption had been uncovered for work being done in Mexico, Libya and Bangledesh. A result of this incident was the World Bank suspending a 1.2 billion dollar loan application for a proposed project in Bangledesh. In April, 2012 the World Bank suspended SNC Lavalin from bidding on any other bank projects. It would be interesting to see a complete list of their ongoing allegations!
Mexico’s Pemex Targets Bank, ECA-Backed Financing in 2019
(US News, New York, 18 December 2018) Mexican energy producer Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) will look to banks and export credit agencies (ECAs) to finance part of its deficit next year, as the company enters 2019 under a new government and uncertain conditions in the international capital markets. State-owned Pemex, which is expected to raise approximately $8 billion in external debt next year, is also facing a bearish investor base concerned that Mexico’s new administration will hinder the company’s fiscal situation. Pemex has a $1.5 billion bank-led revolving credit facility maturing in the second half of 2019 and is on course to raise between $1 billion and $1.5 billion in ECA-backed finance next year, according to three sources familiar with the company’s plans. The company has conducted talks with trade agencies such as Export Development Canada and the Netherlands’ Atradius over ECA-backed loans and in November Pemex received a $250 million 10-year facility from BNP Paribas and HSBC that was 80 percent guaranteed by Italy’s SACE.
