ANSA McAL secures US$500m financing partnership with IDB Invest

The In­ter Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank’s pri­vate sec­tor arm, IDB In­vest, has ap­proved fi­nanc­ing of up to US$500 mil­lion for the ANSA McAL Group to sup­port in­vest­ments aimed at ex­pand­ing in­dus­tri­al ca­pac­i­ty and strength­en­ing sup­ply chains across the Caribbean.

The fi­nanc­ing, an­nounced on Mon­day, rep­re­sents IDB In­vest’s largest ever in­vest­ment in the Caribbean.

An ini­tial com­mit­ment of US$200 mil­lion has been ap­proved. This in­cludes US$150 mil­lion from IDB In­vest, made up of a US$100 mil­lion term loan and a US$50 mil­lion re­volv­ing cred­it fa­cil­i­ty, along with US$50 mil­lion from the Japan In­ter­na­tion­al Co­op­er­a­tion Agency through its Trust Fund Achiev­ing De­vel­op­ment of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (TADAC).

The or­gan­i­sa­tions said the fi­nanc­ing forms part of a strate­gic part­ner­ship that will sup­port in­vest­ments in man­u­fac­tur­ing, lo­gis­tics, re­cy­cling, dis­tri­b­u­tion and sup­ply chain in­fra­struc­ture across the re­gion.

IDB In­vest Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer James P. Scriv­en said the Caribbean’s fu­ture com­pet­i­tive­ness de­pends on in­vest­ing in re­gion­al busi­ness­es that strength­en links be­tween mar­kets.

“By sup­port­ing in­vest­ment in man­u­fac­tur­ing, lo­gis­tics, dis­tri­b­u­tion, and sup­ply chains, this fi­nanc­ing helps strength­en the pro­duc­tive links that un­der­pin re­gion­al growth,” he said.

ANSA McAL Group Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer An­tho­ny N. Sab­ga III said the part­ner­ship re­flect­ed con­fi­dence in the com­pa­ny and the wider Caribbean busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment.

“This part­ner­ship re­flects con­fi­dence in ANSA McAL, in the strength of Caribbean en­ter­prise, and in the op­por­tu­ni­ties that ex­ist with­in our re­gion. The fi­nanc­ing will sup­port in­vest­ments that ex­pand ca­pac­i­ty, strength­en our op­er­a­tions, and en­hance the com­pet­i­tive­ness of the busi­ness­es we have built over the last 145 years,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­nies, the in­vest­ments are ex­pect­ed to gen­er­ate em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, im­prove the com­pet­i­tive­ness of busi­ness­es and strength­en the re­silience of pro­duc­tive sec­tors across the Caribbean.

They said the part­ner­ship is al­so ex­pect­ed to deep­en re­gion­al trade link­ages and sup­port pro­duc­tive in­vest­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go, where ex­pand­ing non en­er­gy eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty re­mains a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty.

Be­yond fi­nanc­ing, IDB In­vest and ANSA McAL said they will work to­geth­er on ini­tia­tives fo­cused on cir­cu­lar econ­o­my so­lu­tions, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, sus­tain­abil­i­ty re­port­ing and en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy as part of the group’s long term in­vest­ment strat­e­gy.