Egypt has secured a £1.7bn guarantee from UK’s export credit agency UK Export Finance (UKEF) for its two-line monorail project. The guarantee, announced on January 20, is the largest amount UKEF has ever provided for an overseas infrastructure project.
UKEF’s support takes the form of a buyer credit guarantee on a €1.9bn syndicated loan facility arranged by JP Morgan as the initial mandated lead arranger and facility agent. The syndicate of banks include CaixaBank, Crédit Agricole, Credit Suisse, KfW Ipex-Bank, NatWest, Société Générale and UBS. The syndicated loan agreement between NAT and JP Morgan Limited Europe was approved by the Egyptian Parliament in December 2020.
The Italian ECA Servizi Assicurativi del Commercio Estero (SACE) and Spanish Compañía Española de Seguros de Crédito a la Exportación (CESCE) provided reinsurance for the loan facility.
A consortium of Bombardier Transportation (leader), Orascom Construction and the Arab Contractors was named preferred bidder for the monorail project in August 2019. With UKEF’s guarantee, Bombardier has now secured the financing needed to fulfill the contract and start production. The company will set up a production line at its Derby plant to manufacture 70 four-car INNOVIA Monorail 300 trains for export to Egypt. The first train is expected to roll off the plant in the second quarter of this year.
The Derby plant will be the UK’s only monorail train production line and is expected to create 100 UK jobs at the company and many more in its UK supply chain.
Matt Byrne, president of Bombardier Transportation (UK and Ireland), said: “The Cairo Monorail export win, against international competition, shows that that the UK rail sector can fight and win in key growth markets such as sustainable transport.
“This is the first UK export since our Derby-built trains were exported to South Africa for the Gautrain project in 2008.”
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