Itapoá gets recognition
Porto Itapoá has won an award for raising U$116M to fund an expansion project.
Porto Itapoá, a private use terminal in Santa Catarina State, south Brazil, has won a Port Financing of the year award from LatinFinance Magazine.
Raising funds for expansion projects is key challenge for ports in the Latam region. "This prestigious award in the financial sector is the culmination of an excellent job at negotiating, shaping, and executing the Company’s new capital structure that made the expansion work possible”, said Mr. Cássio Schreiner, the President of Porto Itapoá.
Porto Itapoá’s main private investors are Grupo PortoSul (the forestry and transport company from Santa Catarina that was responsible for the conception of Porto Itapoá), the LOGZ Investment fund Logística Brasil SA (set up by BRZ Investimentos’ Private Equity department), and Aliança Navigation and Logistics (part of the A. P. Moller-Maersk group).
The US$116M in funding was raised from three banks in three equal amounts: IDB Invest, ING Bank, and Bank ABC Brasil.
The money was used to expand the facility by adding 170m of quay and 100,000 square metres of yard area, and purchase additional equipment to increase total capacity from 500,000 TEU to 1.2M TEU per year. With the work now completed Itapoá has 800m of quay, six STS cranes, 17 RTGs, 40 tractors, three reach stackers and three empty handlers.
The new funding also permitted the a capital restructuring, which was made by the repayment of two debentures debts issued in 2013 and 2016, allowing the company to expand the debt duration from three to six years and decrease interest costs by nearly 150bps.
“We’re very proud to receive another international award, in addition to the previous ones for social, environmental, and technological projects,” said Schreiner.
Source: WorldCargo News