By Nneka Nwogwugwu
African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI) has issued insurance support for Angola’s’ World Bank guaranteed Water Supply Project (The BITA Water Project).
The BITA project will develop water supply infrastructure to supply urban and peri-urban belts of Luanda to ease the current supply problems and meet the increasing demand.
The World Bank’s partially guaranteed facility, is a syndicated loan among 5 Lenders (Standard Chartered Bank, UK – who acted as Financial Advisor, co-Underwriter, co-Bookrunner and Initial Mandated Lead Arranger, BNP Paribas – France who acted as co-Underwriter, co-Bookrunner and Initial Mandated Lead Arranger, Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank who acted as Initial Mandated Lead Arranger – France, Credit Suisse AG, UK and Société Générale as Mandated Lead Arranger S.A., France).
In a landmark water project in Angola, ATI has provided insurance support for the World Bank’s partially guaranteed facility to the Government of Angola for expansion and improvement of water supply service in the urban and peri-urban belts of Luanda.
The BITA Water Project consists of production, transmission and distribution investments to serve 2 million people and is expected to have overall positive environmental and social impacts by improving the health and environmental conditions of the beneficiaries, African news reports.
The project, valued at USD1.09 billion, is a 15-year syndicated loan financed through a combination of private commercial banks.
The lenders provided up to USD910 million to the Republic of Angola, acting through the Ministry of Finance, with the World Bank issuing a guarantee on the loan facility.
Working together with the private insurance market, ATI provided the lenders a 2nd loss insurance above World Bank’s Guarantee of up to USD351 million to cover principal and interest therefore, enabling the project to reach financial close.
ATI’s cover will mitigate the risk of the Government’s failure to make debt service payments under the loans for the project.
