SUMMER SALES <l> Success On the rails Power Play Home Improvement SWEET - 4 deal of the month WHAT'S NewS Nummer 4 August 1995 A stream of fascinating and creative deals flowed in as a response to our request for contenders in the Deal of the Year Competition. As the choice was so great and the contenders so good, here is a taste of all of them. Popular Rabobank in Madrid has structured an ESP 8,000,000,000 peseta, five- year loan for Spain's premier sugar company, Ebro, by using sugar as collateral. 'Sugar can only be traded here by a very small number of specialized companies,' says team leader Carlos Gomez- Arroyo. 'So we applied to the regulatory body, SENPA, for permission to trade the sugar in case of default. SENPA will also monitor the pledged 100,000 tonnes of sugar stored around Spain. Ebro Agrlcolaa. CompaMa da Allmnntacl ln,SJV. 8.000.(100.000 Pesetas Pr és tam o a Largo Plazo Popular Rabobank Rabobank Francc Crédit SuitK Banco Bi bao Viicaya Banque Pan bas Ban co dl Napoli Crcdito luüiano Banco Agente POPULAR Rabobank 'SENPA is obliged to purchase sugar from a company that gets into difficulties. Even be- fore the devaluation of the peseta, the ECU price for sugar more than covers our commit- ment. In addition, an indepen dent organization known as COMISMAR also checks the stores on a regular basis. Plus there's a third factor. Ebro's stocks are insured and the beneficiary is, of course, Rabo bank.' Popular Rabobank had no trouble syndicating the loan. Since then they are increasingly approached by other banks looking for participation op- portunities or simply for ad- vice on agri-related matters. 'And what's even better,' says Gomez-Arroyo, 'this type of structure can be applied to other commodities, such as sherry and oil. We're working on it.' A typical Pickle lease (see What's in a Word, July issue) has been arranged by Rabo bank Belgium and Structured Finance in Utrecht, in a 17.5- year, US$ 157 million deal. The Pickle lease concerns the purchase through lease-back of trams for the Flemish Public Transport Company De Lijn by an American investor. The tax advantage of this trans action to De Lijn amounted to US$ 7.85 million, or five per cent of equipment costs, at close of business on 30 June 1995. 'Rabobank played a central role in the negotiations,' con- firm Ronald Dirksen and Erica van Ooijen of Structured Finance. They completed the deal in cooperation with Erwin Vandendriessche of Rabobank Belgium. 'We also provided the external loan and placed the zero coupon equity free cash deposit with Rabo New York.' Earnings to the bank amount to US$ 1.3 million. Says Dirksen: 'We've gained a track record in the cross-bor der lease market for Big Tic kets other than aeroplanes, and we'11 be raising our profile in this market even higher the coming two years.' So impressed is Akzo Nobel with CBS' Project Finance in Utrecht that it invited the team and Rabobank Germany to play a major role in setting up a DM 100 million joint project financing deal. With local electricity supplier Überlandwerk Unterfranken (ÜWU), Akzo Nobel has set up Kraftwerk Obernburg (KWO) which will build and operate a 60 Megawatt combined heat and power plant at Akzo Nobel's most important fibres plant in that town. Akzo Nobel will buy steam and electricity under a long-term contract, while surplus electricity will be sold to ÜWU. 'For this complex deal, with its large number of contracts, non-recourse and off balance sheet project financing was ar ranged by Project Finance in Utrecht,' says Roger Jansen. 'It is underwritten equally by Rabobank Germany and Deutsche Girozentrale Deutsche Kommunalbank, be- cause the two parties to the deal wanted a Dutch/German banking consortium.' When an aspiring property de- veloper faced a number of problems with his plan to build 450 luxury houses in the Dutch Betuwe region, he turned to Rabobank. Rob de Groot of M&A was able to guide him through to a successful conclusion. Among other things, the devel- oper was looking for a finan- cial partner. De Groot and his colleagues Nico Schrijen and Jan Willem Slooten ap proached the Royal BAM Con struction Group in Bunnik where, after some hesitation, a deal was struck for Fort Bouw, part of the BAM Group, to take 50 percent of the share capital in the developer's com pany, Lingemeer Beheer. Fort Bouw specializes in the indus- trial fabrication of various types of houses, and BAM was not only interested in the turn- over of NLG 150 million, but also in the amount of work for the factory over the next three years. Rabobank provided a NLG 3.5 million loan to purchase the land and the member bank in Betuweland provided a NLG 250,000 credit line for running costs. Through M&A's mediation, Rabobank Betuwe land was also able to obtain exclusive project financing for® new buyers. It is estimated that this carries a liability of NLG I 60 million, which is 40 percent of the estimated sale value of I the 450 houses.

Rabobank Bronnenarchief

blad 'What's news' (EN) | 1995 | | pagina 4