Contact Information: Contact: Adrian Katz (203) 428-3540 Email Contact
Finacity Wins Trade Finance Magazine's "2006 Deal of the Year"
| Source: Finacity
NEW YORK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- March 20, 2007 -- Trade Finance Magazine honored Finacity
Corporation's ("Finacity") Alliance One International ("AOI")(NYSE : AOI )
transaction as one of the magazine's "2006 Deals of the Year."
London-based Trade Finance is published by Euromoney Institutional Investor
PLC and specializes in export and commodity finance.
Finacity successfully facilitated both an investment grade and off-balance
sheet execution for AOI's 3-year, $55 million
non-OECD trade receivable securitization. This transaction met A1/P1 rating
criteria despite the non-OECD nature of the receivable obligors. Finacity
worked extensively with its strategic partner, Euler Hermes, to wrap the
receivables from non-OECD countries (including Argentina, Bulgaria, China,
Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, South Africa,
Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates) with trade credit insurance,
covering both corporate and political risk. Additional structuring
challenges included AOI's S&P "B" credit rating, all transactions being
cross-border, some obligors having open credit while others using letters
of credit, multiple jurisdictions, and the underlying collateral being an
unfinished commodity. Finacity worked with Hannover Funding Company LLC,
administered by Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale, to fund the
transaction. Even after successfully structuring this facility, the
funding depended upon Finacity's customization of its in-house fraud
detection and collateral valuation application and data repository to
respectively verify and warehouse every purchased invoice. These efforts
were in addition to the weekly reporting that provided all parties with
visibility to assets, collateral values and receivables performance.
An additional complexity through which Finacity successfully navigated was
the achievement of true-sale treatment across complex jurisdictions. The
legal, accounting and operational challenges are a consequence of the
receivables being invoiced out of a Swiss entity, managed operationally in
the United Kingdom, with the parent company based in the United States and
the obligors located in numerous non-OECD countries with product shipments
originating across the globe. Notwithstanding this complexity, AOI was
able to achieve off-balance sheet treatment with proceeds being available
to reduce debt.
Finacity Corporation specializes in the structuring and provision of
efficient capital markets receivables funding programs, state-of-the-art
servicing, and bond administration. Finacity is located in the USA and
Europe. For more information about Finacity, please visit www.finacity.com.
Please do not hesitate to contact Adrian Katz at (203) 428-3540 or
akatz@finacity.com should you have any questions or comments about the
transaction.