MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Namibia’s Trustco Borrows $33m from Norsad, EIB, Others

Verdant Capital, a corporate finance firm with offices in South Africa, Mauritius and Ghana, recently arranged debt financing totaling ZAR 450 million (USD 33 million) for Trustco Group, a Namibia-based financial services provider firm. The funds primarily will be deployed to on-lend as home loans and small enterprise loans through Trustco Bank, the banking arm of Trustco Group, and education loans through Trustco Finance, the student-loan arm of Trustco Group. Norsad Finance, a South African “impact” investor, invested USD 10 million in this debt program. ZAR 115 million (USD 8 million) was issued by the EU’s European Investment Bank, earmarked for micro- and small enterprises. The names of the other investors have not been released.

Verdant Capital acted as the sole financial advisor for the debt package [1]. For the year ending March 31, 2016, Trustco Group reported total assets of NAD 4 billion (approximately USD 278 million) and profit before taxes of NAD 420 million (approximately USD 30 million).

By Sharanya Madhavan, Research Associate

About Verdant Capital:

Verdant Capital, a corporate finance firm operating from offices in Johannesburg, South Africa; Mauritius; and Accra, Ghana, provides capital raising as well as merger and acquisition advisory services to clients in Africa. It serves clients in the agri-business, clean energy, financial, manufacturing and business services industries. Financial information for the organization is not available.

About Trustco

Trustco Group Holdings is a Namibia-based company that provides banking services including mortgage loans, medium- and small enterprise loans, education loans, deposit services, insurance products and investment services. Trustco Bank, Trustco Finance, Trustco Insurance and Trustco Investments are the subsidiaries operated by the group. For the year ending March 31, 2016, Trustco reported total assets of NAD 4 billion (approximately USD 278 million) and profit before taxes of NAD 420 million (approximately USD 30 million).

About European Investment Bank

The European Investment Bank (EIB) was created in 1958 and serves as the long-term lending bank of the European Union (EU) as of 2016. In addition to supporting projects in EU member states, its priorities include financing investments in likely future member states and EU partner countries, principally in the area of small and medium-sized enterprises. According to its website, “the EIB operates on a non-profit maximizing basis and lends at close to the cost of borrowing.” For the year ending December 2015, EIB reported total assets of EUR 571 billion (USD 637 billion) and a loan portfolio of EUR 504 million (USD 562 million).

Sources and Additional Resources:

[1] Trustco: http://www.tgh.na/major-debt-financing/

MicroCapital Universe: Trustco

MicroCapital Universe:  EIB

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