Sofisa Gets $140m Syndicated Loan

Brazil’s Banco Sofisa has closed a $140m A/B loan via the IDB and Banco Itau Europa. The $25m, 5-year A loan came from the IDB. The B loan consists of 4 tranches. Two of the tranches are for 2 and 3 year tenors for a combined $90m. Another 2 tranches are valued at EUR18.6m and also have tenors of 2 and 3 years. The spread on the B loan was heard in the high 200bp over Libor area, according to a banker with knowledge of the transaction. Banco do Brasil Vienna, HSBC and Standard Bank were bookrunners. Sofisa specializes in lending to small firms in less developed regions. The transaction was almost 2x oversubscribed according to Ricardo Pereira, Banco Sofisa’s CFO. ING was an MLA, while Barclays, Commerzbank, Israel Discount Bank and Santander were lead arrangers. AKA Ausfuhrkredit-Gesellschaft, BAC Florida Bank, Banco Security, Oberbank, Standard Chartered and UBS were arrangers. “There were several Brazilian deals in the market before this, but the deal still garnered a lot of interest, and attracted new names,” Jozef Henriquez, head of IDB syndications tells Latin Finance. Sofisa says it expects to use the loan to expand its loan portfolio to small firms and double its customer base by 2015. It expects to increase total loans from $1bn to more than $2bn.