InfraCredit secures $50m IFC facility for Nigerian infrastructure finance
Infrastructure Credit Guarantee Company has secured a $50 million subordinated, unsecured 10-year facility from the International Finance Corporation. InfraCredit said the funding would strengthen its capital base and help mobilise long-term local-currency finance for projects in areas including renewable energy, digital infrastructure, healthcare, transport and climate-smart agriculture.
Infrastructure Credit Guarantee Company Plc, known as InfraCredit, has secured a $50 million subordinated unsecured 10-year debt facility from the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group. InfraCredit said in a statement on Wednesday that the facility would strengthen its capital structure and increase its ability to support infrastructure financing in Nigeria. The commitment will be disbursed in two tranches of $25 million each.
The company said the additional capital would support a growing pipeline of infrastructure transactions and help mobilise long-term local-currency financing. Potential areas include renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture, digital infrastructure, telecommunications, healthcare, transport and other productive sectors. InfraCredit chief executive Chinua Azubike said the IFC investment would improve the company’s capacity to provide financial solutions and attract long-term domestic capital.
He said the transaction demonstrated continued confidence from the international development-finance community in InfraCredit’s business model. Aliou Maiga, IFC’s Financial Institutions Group director for Africa, said the investment reflected IFC’s commitment to strengthening Nigeria’s infrastructure-finance ecosystem. He said supporting InfraCredit’s institutional capacity could help mobilise domestic resources for projects capable of driving economic growth, job creation and sustainable development.
The facility is supported by the International Development Association Private Sector Window Blended Finance Facility and the Concessional Capital Window. InfraCredit said the arrangement added to support from development-finance institutions through equity, subordinated debt, risk-sharing, counter-guarantees, first-loss capital and technical assistance. Since beginning operations in 2017, InfraCredit said it had facilitated more than N600bn in long-term local-currency financing across 28 infrastructure projects.
It has also supported 14 first-time issuers in accessing Nigeria’s domestic debt-capital market. The company said its guaranteed transactions had included Nigeria’s first 15-year green infrastructure bond and helped extend corporate bond tenors to as long as 20 years. Its bonds have attracted domestic institutional investors, including 20 of Nigeria’s 25 pension fund administrators, with some transactions recording significant oversubscriptions.
InfraCredit said the facility followed the expansion of its domestic institutional shareholder base, its transition to a listed public company on the NASD OTC Securities Exchange and the development of financing products supporting projects through different stages.
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