JB's weekly round-up - 17 March 2014

Greetings from a snow covered northern Japan – about 3-4 metres of snow! It’s been an eventful couple of weeks so I hope you enjoy this bumper edition of weekly news.
 
 “Perfect 10” Deals of the Year results announced
We are delighted to announce the results of our “Perfect 10” – the 2013 Deals of the Year. We received in excess of 150 submissions and so whittling so many fantastic deals down to just 10 was a real challenge. Of our winners, 4 were commodity finance transactions, and 6 were export finance or at least had a significant ECA component.
 
You can view the Perfect 10 here.
 
We will be producing a full write up on the winning deals in the coming weeks. Congratulations to all the winners, and to everyone else who submitted some fantastic nominations this year.
 
Each deal can also be viewed on our user generated deals database - tagmydeals. If you or a member of your team have been involved in any of the winning transactions, you can highlight your role by tagging yourself to the deal. For help or to arrange a demonstration, email Max.
 
Our view is that all successfully closed deals should be celebrated in some way, and as such, we encourage you to usetagmydeals and to enter information on any successful close you have worked on. So far we have over 650 live deals on the website, and we are adding more on a daily basis.
 
 Paris in Spring
Paris is a lovely city – but especially so in the sunshine! Hopefully that will be the case when borrowers, exporters, agencies, DFIs and banks descend on the French capital for TXF’s ECA/DFI Finance in 2014 conference on 3-4 June.
 
We have just finalised the first edition of the agenda. You can view it here.

 More OECD-based ECA borrowing
Since the economic crisis there has been a rise in the number of OECD-based users of export credit agency financing. One of the interesting things to look out for in the next few years is whether this trend will continue now that the economy is returning to strength.
 
In the meantime, Oslo-based Petroleum Geo-Services has turned to JBIC and SMBC for $305 million to finance Ramform titan-class vessels. Nexi will insure SMBC’s portion of the loan, which will benefit Nagasaki-based manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
 
 Birth of the Ghana Commodity Exchange?
Eleni, the premier commodity exchange promoter in Africa, has set its sights on Ghana. The private company is leading the push for what would be the new Ghana Commodity Exchange – and something of a West African hub. The investment consortium partners include Ghana’s top tier financial institutions, Data Bank Agrifund Manager, Ecobank Ghana, UT Bank Ghana, as well as IFC, 8 Miles Fund and eleni, with minority stakeholding by the government of Ghana. Have a look at the article for direct quotes on the initiative from Ghana’s president.

 The impact of the alleged Oceanografia fraud
When Citi was forced to revise down 2013 income significantly following an alleged fraud at its transaction banking unit, the trade finance industry was put under the spotlight. The question that must now be asked is whether this incident was a one-off, or could similar issues exist across the industry? Check out the article for a rundown on what happened and what the potential implications are.
 
 ING and CACIB combine for RusHydro financing
ING-DiBa (the German arm of ING Bank) and Crédit Agricole (CACIB) combined to structure two separate ECA-backed financings for Russian power company RusHydro, signed last week (TXF 6 March 2014). The overall $263 million financing sees both deals backed by OeKB, the Austrian ECA. The exporter on the deal is Voith – a company which has worked hard to develop its activity in the CIS hydro and other power sectors. Check out the news item.
 
 Shipping sector continues on a strong wave
The past 12-14 months has seen a resurgence in shipping finance transactions – of one form or another. This sector of finance – whether ECA backed or not – has found something of a new life with offshore hydrocarbon activity providing an additional impetus.
 
This month saw Crédit Agricole (CACIB) coordinate ECA-backed financing for Singapore-headquartered Petredec’s purchase of LPG carriers from South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries (TXF 3 March 2014). The $200 million transaction also saw HSH Nordbank, ABN AMRO and ING Bank come into the K-sure backed deal. It is interesting to see ABN AMRO appearing in more shipping deals over the past few months. Speaking with a senior ABN banker about this last week, the bank is set to continue this vein with selective client-led transactions. The bank’s involvement will provide welcome liquidity to the sector.
 
 Natixis goes Seaborn
Seaborn Networks has mandated Natixis as the coordinating arranger of Seaborn’s new submarine cable project Seabras-1(TXF 3 March 2014). The bank will work closely with Coface in the structuring of the $290 million project financing, which links the financial centres of Brazil and the United States. We await further developments on a landmark commercial development by contractor Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks.
 
 SEK turns the switch for Zambia
Swedish Export Credit (SEK) continues to be a key lynchpin in funding deals in markets where infrastructure development is high on the agenda. Such is the case with a $163 million financing for the Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (TXF 6 March 2014). The electricity transmission expansion transaction is being arranged by Nordea and Standard Bank, with guarantees from EKN. The exporter is Nordic-based Eltel Networks, which is doing a lot of work in sub-Saharan markets.
 
 Compliance, compliance and…. compliance!
Unfortunately, it is one of the most common words on everybody’s lips – although they would rather it was not. Anything – anything, to make all our lives a little easier in assisting with the annoying aspects of compliance is thoroughly welcome. Only this week, I was sitting with a commodity banker who was painfully pointing out how a deal his bank was doing with a well-known trading company was being put under a totally unnecessary microscope by his compliance department. In his words: “They are looking for things that are simply just not there – nor will they ever be. It’s madness.” His bank’s involvement will take place (and it is not even as an MLA), but the time and effort that the whole process will eat up is mind-numbing.
 
So, I guess the news last week that SWIFT is collaborating with a number of major banks on a KYC Registry is good news indeed (TXF 7 March 2014). The banks joining initially are: Citi, JP Morgan, BAML, Standard Chartered, SG CIB and Commerzbank.Full details of the initiative can be found in the news item.
 
 Magnolia LNG continues to blossom
The Magnolia LNG project in the US has reached a couple of extra milestones recently, in particular with the authorisation to export an additional four million tpa of LNG to free trade agreement (FTA) countries of the USA (TXF 7 March 2014). In addition, last week Magnolia LNG signed another major tolling agreement, this time with AES Latin American Development. Full details of these developments, together with the initial tolling structure, can be found in the news report.
 
 Hot to trot
There is always someone on the move, and last week we wereable to confirm the arrival of Mark Paton at Investec in London(TXF 7 March 2014).
Paton joins the Investec export and agency finance team from ANZ, and his arrival at the bank is a further expansion to the team after John Neblo joined Investec in New York in early February (TXF 5 February 2014).
 
In other export finance departments, ING Bank Frankfurt has recruited Marina Grigoryeva (TXF 3 March 2014). Marina was previously with Deutsche Bank.
 
Deutsche did do some bolstering of its own, however. Anthony Lin joined as China head of transaction banking, as well as head of trade finance and cash management for corporates.
 
And, within the agencies, US Ex-Im has appointed James Burrows as senior vice-president for the small business group (TXF 5 March 2014).
 
 And finally...
I will be in Japan for the next couple of weeks, so if you have any article ideas or stories you would like to discuss, please contact my colleague Hesham Zakai (hesham.zakai@txfmedia.com)
 
Until next time!
 
Arigato,
 
JB