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Cape Town - Nedbank Capital has acted as mandated lead
arranger and sole lender for a 10-year R863m fixed rate loan facility to
Transnet.
The financing will support Transnet's purchase of 47 diesel
locomotives from General Electric South Africa, a subsidiary of the US-based
General Electric company.
“We are extremely proud to have successfully concluded this
important transaction. The locomotives form part of Transnet's Market Demand
Strategy (MDS) which is aimed at investing about R300bn over the next seven
years with most of the locomotives being built in South Africa, thus enabling
economic growth, skills development and job creation,” said Philna Potgieter,
head of export credit finance at Nedbank Capital, in a statement.
As locomotive kits for the C30-ACi locomotives are being
imported from the United States with final assembly performed in South Africa,
Nedbank Capital’s loan to Transnet will be 100% guaranteed by the Export Import
Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), an independent US federal government
agency.
“Financing US exports to Sub-Saharan Africa is a priority
for Ex-Im Bank, and we are delighted to have concluded this transaction,” said
Ex-Im Bank chairperson and President Fred Hochberg. “We have dramatically
increased our activity in sub-Saharan Africa. In the first nine months of
fiscal year 2012, we authorised a historic high level of financing - $1.5bn –
supporting US exports to this region. This financing already exceeds the
previous record of $1.4bn that the Bank set for the entire fiscal year in
2011.”
Ex-Im Bank is the official export-credit agency of the United States. The independent federal government agency helps to create and maintain US jobs by financing the sales of US exports, primarily to emerging markets throughout the world, providing loan guarantees, export-credit insurance and direct loans. Ex-Im Bank's products and initiatives help US exporters in all regions of Africa, including higher-risk and emerging markets.
