The Private Infrastructure Development Group’s long-term infrastructure debt business, the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund, saw its loan book break through the $1bn mark in 2020.
Disclosing this on Monday, PIDG stated that EAIF signed eight new projects, bringing the loan book value to $1.04bn
Managed by Ninety One, EAIF offers loans to mainly private sector infrastructure developers across Africa and parts of the Levant, lending between $10m and $65m to 10 infrastructure sectors.
The fund had committed $243m in new loans to businesses in digital and telecommunications, energy generation, manufacturing, transportation, logistics and bulk storage.
In 2020, Zimbabwe became the 18th African country in the fund’s current loan portfolio to benefit from EAIF support.
The Director of EAIF at Ninety One, Martijn Proos, said, “EAIF’s core objectives are the mobilising of private capital to strengthen Africa’s economic resilience, helping to build sustainable economies and contributing to poverty alleviation. Our activities will support many parts of Africa in recovering from COVID-19 and have long-term economic impact.”
Following its successful London issue, the Chief Financial Officer at Helios Towers, Tom Greenwood, said, “EAIF’s presence as anchor investor was an important signal to private investors and instrumental in the positive market sentiment that greeted the issue. Their anchor investment helped us to effectively re-open the African corporate debt capital market.”
As $700bn external debt put Africa’s economic recovery from the pandemic in uncertainty, the fund stressed that progressive health and safety, environmental and social standards as well as female empowerment remain fundamental to its EAIF and PIDG programmes.
“Every loan application must demonstrate corporate commitment to and transparency in these areas and the issues are closely monitored across the period of loans,” it added.
