0
0
The African Finance Corporation (AFC), a private sector-led Pan-African multilateral development finance institution, with a capital base of US$1.2 billion, invested a total of $385 million in new investments in 2013, according to its 2013 annual report released recently.
Some of the investments include a $365 million toll bridge to ease congestion and aid economic development in Cote D'Ivoire. The investment, the Henri Konan Bedie Bridge, is an AFC financed flagship public private partnership (PPP) project in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
The project involves the design, construction, financing, commissioning and operation of a 6.4km highway and 1.9km bridge with three lanes in each direction across the Ebrié lagoon, connecting Abidjan's residential Riviera district directly with the commercial district of Marcory.
Another notable investment is the MainOne Cable System, an undersea fibre optic cable system that links countries on the west coast of Africa to Europe and other parts of the world.
The cable system consists of approximately 7000km of fiber optic cable between Portugal and Nigeria with branching units to the Canary Islands, Morocco, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The cable system, operational from 2010, was completed on time and budget.
The corporation smattering from an impressive year also declared a total of $44 million as dividends to its shareholders for the period under review. This translates to $0.04 per share. The approved dividend is however subject to approval at the 2014 Annual a General Meeting of the corporation.
According to the financials, the share capital of the Corporation as at 31 December, 2013 was valued at $1,089,067,000, representing no change from the previous period.
The corporation also made substantial progress against its financing objectives in 2013 as it successful executed a $125 million borrowing program from a club of European Development Finance institutions (DFIs) in two separate transactions: DEG and FMO, and with Proparco and European Financing Partners.
"We debuted on the international syndicated loan market with an over-subscribed 2-year $250 million term loan facility and renewed our bilateral borrowings from Rand Merchant Bank and Standard Bank.
“The successes (multilateral borrowing and oversubscribed syndicated facility) recorded with our borrowing program attest to a growing level of market acceptance and recognition of the AFC," the report stated.
Of notable mention in the period under review is the inclusion of AFC as a key partner from Africa, to participate in the $7 billion US Presidential Power Africa Initiative, to accelerate investment in Africa's power sector over the next five years.
Investment in the Nigerian power sector was initiated under the Nigerian power sector privatisation in which AFC provided acquisition finance and equity investments in excess of US$150 million for a number of assets, notably Kainji Power Generation Company by Mainstream Energy, Transcorp for the acquisition of Ughelli Power and Vigeo for the Benin Electricity distribution Company acquisition.
Specifically, in 2013 Africa Finance Corporation made good progress in advancing its vision of becoming the leading African institution active in infrastructure financing on the continent, despite challenges in the global economy.
With five years of consistent growth and performance, it is clear that a private sector led institution can contribute significantly to addressing Africa’s infrastructure deficit.
The Corporation's total comprehensive income for the 2013 financial year was $87.3 million, a slight increase compared with 2012 (US$ 83.2 million) largely due to key investments in the power sector despite lower yield realised in 2012. Profit for the year was $80.05 million as against $76.19 million, while total asserts grew marginally from $1.7 billion to $1.92 billion.
Facebook Comments