KENYA – Agri Commodities and Finance (ACF), the main trading company of Export Trading Company (ETC) Group has clinched a US$70 million working capital loan from Dutch development financier FMO.
The signing of the agreement comes months after the development bank revealed it was seeking to extend a syndicated facility of US$90m to the largest and diversified agricultural commodity trader and supply chain manager with most of its footprint in Africa.
The facility having a tenor of 2.5 years, is aimed to allow ETC Group have sufficient liquidity to continue its operations, maintain employment and continue its support to farmers across Africa.
“ETC Group plays a key role in various agricultural value chains (cashew nuts, sesame seeds, pulses etc.). In Africa, it uses its own supply chain infrastructure to source over 80% of its agricultural commodities at farm-gate and operates processing plants that create value for the local economies.
“ETC Group is also one of the largest importers and distributors of fertilizer in Africa, playing an important role in enhancing incomes of African farmers,” indicated FMO as reason to fund the company.
ETC Group became an FMO client in 2019
Founded in Kenya in 1967, ETC Group has emerged as one of Africa’s largest agricultural conglomerates with footprints across sub-Saharan Africa, North America, Europe, the Middle East and South East Asian countries.
Globally recognised as one of the fastest growing vertically integrated agricultural supply chain groups, its operations include procurement, warehousing, processing and/or manufacturing of finished goods, merchandising, transporting and distributing of products and driving brand growth, with most of its footprint in Africa.
It operates in 26 African countries and manages more than 400 warehouses and over 90 processing plants worldwide.
Recently, Finnfund, a development financer invested US$15 million in a syndicate loan to ETG alongside other investors to enable it further develop its business in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.
This was followed with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) approving a US$400m global credit facility agreement for the group.
Also DEG provided ETC Group with long-term working capital of up to US$ 40m and syndicated a further US$ 64.2m, earlier in the year.
Supporting Africa’s agriculture value chain, ETC Group and government of Zambia signed a US$11 million contract in July, focusing on cashew nut rejuvenation and re-establishment to ensure delivery of high quality and export grade nuts from the South African country.
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