AFC secures $100 million OPIC, JP Morgan loan

THE Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) has secured a $100 million long-term loan facility from the United States (U.S.) Government’s development finance institution, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the global investment-banking leader, JP Morgan.

  Seventy-five million dollars of the facility amount will be provided by OPIC while the remaining $25 million will be provided by JP Morgan. The facility is intended to further deepen AFC’s resources to support infrastructure development on the African continent.
  Elizabeth Littlefield, OPIC’s President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) said: “When effective financial leadership catalyses investment to create significant development impact, we in the DFI community take notice. Recognition for AFC’s work has been rapidly growing as they spur private sector investment in African power and infrastructure projects. OPIC’s support is an indication that we share AFC’s goals to draw additional investor focus to development in Africa. OPIC has been clear that the public resources alone cannot meet the demands in Africa’s power generation and infrastructure sectors. We must engage the private sector.  We’re enthusiastic about joining forces with JP. Morgan and AFC to provide tailored financing to the development of these much-needed and highly impactful infrastructure projects.”

   Andrew Alli, AFC President and Chief Executive Officer said: “We are delighted with OPIC’s and JP Morgan’s show of faith in the AFC business model and support for our commitment to providing an African led, private sector driven contribution to bridging Africa’s infrastructure divide. Over the last 18 months, we have established financing partnerships with a broad range of DFI and private sector partners, with credit facilities in excess of $850 million. With an investment deficit of over $40 billion yearly over the next 10 years, a co-ordinated approach based on strong private and public sector partnerships is vital. AFC has established a world-class team of African infrastructure and investment professionals to support the project development, deal structuring and early stage investment that are critical to delivering bankable projects. We will leverage OPIC’s and JP Morgan’s support to further the development of our infrastructure portfolio across Africa.”

   Marc J Hussey, Managing Director and JP Morgan’s Joint Senior Officer for Sub-Saharan Africa commented: “We are honoured to be the first US based private sector institution to partner with the AFC, an African led investment grade institution providing not only access to finance, deal structuring and technical expertise, but also international financing capacity.” 

  The AFC is an African-led investment grade rated multilateral development finance institution, established in 2007, to be the catalyst for private sector infrastructure investment across Africa by proactively developing and financing infrastructure, industrial and financial assets. AFC fills a critical void in providing project structuring expertise and risk capital to address Africa’s infrastructure development needs, and is increasingly being seen as the benchmark institution for private sector investment in the core infrastructure sectors of power, natural resources, heavy industry, transport, and telecommunications. 

Culled from http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/business