EAIF signs Master Cooperation Agreement with the International Finance Corporation
Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) company, the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) has signed a Master Cooperation Agreement (MCA) with the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Signed on 18th March 2020, the MCA will come into operation when the IFC is the mandated lead arranger of the debt package for an infrastructure project involving the two parties. The MCA sets out a range of mutually agreed processes on reaching contractual agreement and allocation of responsibilities on each project. EAIF joins 33 development finance institutions (DFIs) from across the world that have signed the MCA, though EAIF is the first third party fund to have done so.
The core benefits of the MCA is that it can save time and money as the signatories become familiar with using the same approach and processes. These savings can be passed on in the form of more infrastructure projects happening faster in African countries and in reducing the amount of capital used in administration.
Martijn Proos, a director at EAIF’s managers, Ninety One (formerly Investec Asset Management) says;
“The MCA is an exciting development for the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund. It helps widen and deepen our new business pipeline. It will accelerate the time it takes to get good projects financed and deliver efficiencies in human resources and legal and administrative costs. Being the first third party fund to sign such an MCA with the IFC marks out EAIF, PIDG and Ninety One as an increasingly effective and successful presence in the African infrastructure market.”
About EAIF
The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund provides a variety of debt products to infrastructure projects promoted mainly by private sector businesses in sub-Saharan Africa. It is part of PIDG. EAIF was established and substantially funded by the governments of the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden. It raises its debt capital from public and private sources, including Allianz, the global insurance and financial services company; Standard Chartered Bank; the African Development Bank; the German development finance institution, KFW, and FMO, the Dutch development bank. The Fund helps create the infrastructure framework that is essential to sustained economic stability, business confidence, job creation and poverty reduction. It has to date supported nearly 80 infrastructure projects across nine sectors in 21 sub-Saharan African countries. EAIF is managed by Investec Asset Management.
About PIDG
The Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) is an innovative infrastructure development and finance organisation which encourages and mobilises private investment in pioneering infrastructure in the frontier markets of sub-Saharan Africa and south and south-east Asia to promote economic development and combat poverty. PIDG delivers its ambition in line with its values of opportunity, accountability, safety, integrity and impact. Since 2002, PIDG has supported 183 infrastructure projects to financial close and provided 243 million people with access to new or improved infrastructure. PIDG is funded by six governments (the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, Sweden, Germany) and the IFC.
www.pidg.net
About Ninety One
Ninety One is one of the largest third party investors in private equity, credit, public equity and sovereign debt across the African continent. The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) is managed by and fully integrated into Ninety One’s African investment platform. Ninety One manages the entire process on behalf of the EAIF. It markets the Fund, seeks projects, evaluates loan
applications, including due diligence, manages transaction administration and monitors the loan portfolio. Since May 2016, when it was awarded the management mandate, Ninety One and its EAIF team have closed over 20 infrastructure transactions with a capital value of USD 650m. The team also led EAIF’s last round of fundraising, raising US$385 million, including US$100 million from Allianz Global Investors and US$50 million from Standard Chartered, a long-standing lender to EAIF.
Ninety One is an independent, active global asset manager listed on the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges. In February 2020 it had over US$ 142 billion of assets under management. Established in South Africa in 1991, as Investec Asset Management, the firm was a pioneer in emerging markets in Africa. In 2020, almost three decades of organic growth later, the firm de-merged from Investec Group and became Ninety One. Today, Ninety One offers distinctive, active strategies across equities, fixed income, multi-asset and alternative investments to institutions, advisors and individual investors around the world.