South Africa’s PIC and Russia’s Gazprombank sign cooperation agreement

The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) and Gazprombank (GPB) of the Russian Federation have signed a cooperation agreement in Pretoria, South Africa.

The objective of the cooperation agreement is to establish opportunities for cooperation between the two entities and, where possible, facilitate business cooperation between South Africa and the Russian Federation.

This cooperation will see these two entities focus on several areas of interest, within South Africa and countries in the Sub-Saharan African region. These areas include: investment banking, capital markets and securities transactions, trade finance; asset management; private equity as well as project, leveraged and structured finance.

The project, leveraged and structured finance area of interest, specifically, will expand on direct and indirect financing of projects in the field of natural gas, oil, petrochemicals, mining and mining infrastructure, green energy, as well as other sectors of mutual interest in the future.

Dr Daniel Matjila, the Chief Investment Officer of the PIC, stated:

“The agreement with Gazprombank complements our efforts to deliver on our developmental investment mandate. This will further assist us in delivering on the rest of Africa strategy which seeks to generate returns while simultaneously assisting the continent to realize its full potential.”

In terms of the Agreement, the PIC and GPB will endeavour to collaborate on capacity building and skills transfer in identified areas of finance, credit analysis, environmental and social analysis, as well as information and research sharing to enhance economic sector knowledge.

Alan Vaksman, Deputy Chairm?n of the Management Board of Gazprombank (OJSC), commented:

“Gazprombank has already started working with a number of projects of mutual interest to the South African and Russian companies. We hope that signing of this Cooperation Agreement provides us the opportunity to begin the discussions regarding the co-financing of these projects with the PIC. The PIC is the valuable partner for Gazprombank and our cooperation will explore new horizons for both companies.”