Argentine financial trustee Banco de Valores started on Friday to market the sale of units in an up to $85 million financial trust for the Argentine pharmaceutical company Laboratorios Richmond to build a plant for making biotech products, including the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine.
The auction will be held August 6 for institutional investors to buy units in the green and social trust, Banco de Valores said in a securities filing on Thursday.
Richmond wants to raise at least $70 million from the deal for the year-long project to build the plant.
The units in the 20-year trust will be denominated in dollars but linked to local currency, meaning that they will be bought and paid back in pesos at the official exchange rate. The margin that the units will pay over currency depreciation will be determined in the bidding process.
Banco de Valores is the deal manager and lead bookrunner in the deal with Banco Provincia and Banco Nación as the other bookrunners.
Marcelo Figueiras, Richmond’s controlling shareholder and chairman, said the lab will be key for the country to contend with COVID-19 pandemic and future health crises.
“The countries that produce vaccines are the ones that today are getting through this unprecedented crisis the best,” he said in a statement. “This multi-platform project will allow us to demonstrate that we are capable of producing the Sputnik V vaccine throughout its production cycle and other biotechnology products for Argentina, Latin America and the world.”
Argentina has a deal to import Sputnik V from Russia, but a presidential adviser in July complained about delays in receiving the second dose of the vaccine. This has raised concerns in the ruling party that delays in the vaccination program could hurt its chances in the midterm elections in November.
Richmond signed an agreement in February to produce the the Sputnik V vaccine in Argentina. The accord was signed with the Russian Direct Investment Fund Management Co, which represents the maker of the vaccine, and the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow.