Clico Investment Bank to fund US$1.2 billion steel project

CIB is currently arranging the financing for the development of the integrated steel complex, which is expected to span several years, with a completion date slated for 2009.

At present, CIB’s focus is on financing the first phase of the project valued at US$600 million. This phase includes due diligence and evaluation work for an oxide pellet plant and a hot briquetted iron plant, CIB said in a statement.

The project, the company said, will be a syndicated financing facility with a 12-year term. Construction is due to begin early next year, 2006.

CIB president, Lennox Archer, boasts that this investment is testimony of the bank’s success over the years and a demonstration of confidence in CIB, an indigenous bank, to perform such a role.

Archer recalls that very early in the bank’s history, CIB was the first non-bank local financial institution to become co-lead manager, with Credit Suisse First Boston, of two Eurodollar issues. The first was in 1992 in the amount of US$100 million; the other in 1993 for US$125 million. CIB has also arranged several other issues for Caribbean governments and utilities including Grenada and Guyana, the company noted.

CIB said it remains confident that the Essar deal will bring tremendous benefits to the economy of Trinidad and Tobago.