Holland & Knight Advises IDB Invest on $100 Million Credit Facility
NEW YORK (July 24, 2023) – Holland & Knight represented the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IDB Invest) as lender of a loan for up to $100 million to ENSA Grupo EPM (Elektra Noreste S.A.), an energy distribution company in the northeast of Panama. Scotiabank Panama also acted as a lender on the transaction, with the total financial package including $50 million from IDB Invest and $50 million from Scotiabank Panama. The deal was signed on July 14.
The loan will fund a project to improve and expand electrical services to rural and urban areas of ENSA's concession area, benefiting more than 35,000 users, of whom nearly 5,000 lack access to electricity. The project involves the digitization of ENSA's electrical network, incorporating new technologies that will allow the company to achieve a more efficient distribution network as well as the use of smart and prepaid indicators. In addition to the loan, IDB Invest will provide technical advisory services to reinforce ENSA's gender equality strategy and promote innovative actions that will adopt and further inclusion practices in its workforce. The project will support the incorporation of a gender perspective in ENSA's work with communities, particularly when implementing new electrification projects and new connections.
ENSA is a company with more than 550 direct collaborators and 2,000 indirect employees in charge of distributing and marketing electric power to more than 510,000 clients in Panamanian cities and regions, including East Panama, Colón, Darién and Guna Yala Region, while also serving the Pacific Islands. Its concession area represents 43 percent of the country's electricity customers, with a population of 1.8 million people and a service territory of 29,000 square kilometers (km) with 12,000 km of distribution lines. ENSA is a subsidiary of Grupo EPM, one of the leading public utilities companies in Colombia with operations in the energy, gas, water and telecommunications sectors.
IDB Invest, as a member of the Inter-American Development Bank Group, is a multilateral development bank committed to promoting the economic development of its member countries in Latin America and the Caribbean through the private sector. IDB Invest provides financing to sustainable businesses and projects with the aim of achieving financial results while maximizing economic, social and environmental development in the region.
The Holland & Knight team advising IDB Invest was led by Partner Stephen Double and Associate Maria De Bedout.