Eskom shows benefit of multilateral bank support

摘要

South African state-run power utility eskom has signed a US$1.4bn-equivalent financing backed by the African Development Bank. It is the latest African transaction to include a commercial tranche guaranteed by a multilateral development bank. This relatively new trend is likely to increase as depressed oil prices, general global volatility and political insecurity hamper international bank appetite for African loans, bankers say. African loan volume fell 40% to US$9.3bn in the first half of the year from US$15.7bn in the first six months of 2015 - the lowest first-half total for the continent since 2009, according to Thomson Reuters LPC data. "Africa is in cyclical slowdown, fuelled by the fall in oil prices and there are general concerns around funding appetite. Into that breach development banks are supposed to go - they are counter-cyclical institutions, and this is a new way for them to do this," one banker said.