Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
In April 2015, a syndicate of 15 banks — including the Bank of China (BOC) — entered into a $470 million USD syndicated revolver loan agreement with ECOM Agroindustrial Corp. Limited (EACL) — a Pully, Switzerland-based privately-held global commodity trading and processing company specializing in coffee, cotton, and cocoa — and ECOM Agroindustrial Asia Pte. Limited (EAA) — a Singapore-incorporated subsidiary of ECOM Agroindustrial Corp. — for refinancing, general corporate, and working capital purposes. This revolver loan carried a maturity period of 364 days and an interest rate based on a floating rate plus a margin of 145 basis points (bps). EACL, United States-based subsidiary Ecom Atlantic, Inc., Mexico-based subsidiary Agroindustrias Unidas de México, S.A. de C.V., Netherlands-based subsidiary Dutch Cocoa B.V., and England and Wales-incorporated ECOM Agrotrade Limited all issued guarantees for this loan. The proceeds were to be used by the borrowers for its general corporate expenditure, working capital requirements, and the refinancing a $440 million USD facility signed in April 2014. BOC contributed $30 million USD to the loan syndicate. In addition to BOC, the following lenders contributed the respective amounts to the loan syndicate: Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) ($45 million USD), DBS Bank ($45 million USD), and ING Group N.V. ($45 million USD), ABN Amro Bank N.V. ($35 million USD), Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. (BTMU) ($35 million USD), Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) ($35 million USD), HSBC Bank ($35 million USD), Standard Chartered Bank PLC ($35 million USD), Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A. ($30 million USD), SG Corporate & Investment Banking ($30 million USD), Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, Limited (OCBC Bank) ($20 million USD), UBS AG ($20 million USD), United Overseas Bank Limited (UOB) ($20 million USD), and KBC Bank N.V. ($10 million USD). ANZ, DBS, and ING served as the mandated lead arrangers and joint bookrunners. BOC, ABN AMRO, BTMU, CBA, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Rabobank, and SocGen joined in syndication as mandated lead arrangers. OCBC Bank, UBS, and UOB joined in syndication as lead arrangers. KBC Bank joined in syndication as arranger. This loan was oversubscribed in syndication from its initial $300 million USD target. Syndication saw ABN AMRO Bank, Bank of China, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, HSBC, BTMU, Rabobank, SG Corporate & Investment Banking and Standard Chartered Bank join in as mandated lead arrangers while KBC, OCBC, UBS and UOB came in as arrangers.