ZIMBABWE: Imara to facilitate $70m PPC loan

Harare-based Imara Fiduciary has been appointed security agent for PTA Bank to facilitate the extension of a $70 million loan to PPC Zimbabwe. The loan will fund the construction of a new cement factory in Harare.A specialist service provider registered as a bond-holding company, Imara Fiduciary, will hold tangible PPC security on behalf of PTA and other investors. 

“We are delighted by the appointment by PTA Bank for the purposes of facilitating vital infrastructure investment in Zimbabwe. We regard it as an endorsement of both our strategic vision and business model,” said Imara Fiduciary executive director Mr Markus de Klerk. 

“Risk mitigation by Imara Fiduciary is an efficient and cost-effective mechanism for achieving increased peace of mind by lenders and investors while giving the borrower a flexible and scalable security platform with a minimum of delay and red tape.” 

Mr de Klerk said they provided a boots-on-the-ground service that supports funding deployed where it is needed, while timely and accurate reporting to the investor promotes effective working relationships and helps drive the project forward within the envisaged time-frame. 

PTA is the treaty-based Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank. Its mission is to advance the economic development, integration and prosperity of the regions it serves through the extension of development capital and associated services.

“The security and debenture services of Imara Fiduciary add value in an environment where credit and other risks have to be solidly and credibly mitigated to ensure the confidence of financiers, especially international financiers,” said PTA Bank president Mr Admassu Tadesse. 

Mr Tadesse said there is no doubt that Zimbabwe has a great deal of need for financing and investment in its productive and infrastructure sectors and expansion of cement capacity is an important contribution in this respect. 

He said PTA Bank is pleased to have partnered with PPC to co-finance this sizeable investment in Zimbabwe’s private sector and the industrial economy. 

Imara Fiduciary was formally launched in Harare in early 2014 after ground-breaking work by Imara in the Zimbabwe corporate debt market. 

By early this year, Imara had raised more than $50 million in corporate debt.

Imara Fiduciary, a registered bond-holding company, provides banking and debt solutions to corporates, individuals and public-private partnerships while creating a simple, robust entry and exit to the secured corporate debt market, thereby facilitating greater syndicated and direct participation in the Zimbabwe economy by foreign investors. 

Specifically, it provides debenture, security trust and corporate governance services and functions as a non-discretionary agent managing security structures and mandatory prepayment or escrow account arrangements. It is a dedicated, boots-on-the-ground risk mitigator; not a risk underwriter.