|
|
|
 | News | |
|
|
THE EXPERTS' VIEW |
|
|
|
| September 2006 - Calyon, a leading bank in Export Trade & Commodity Finance |
 Export Trade & Commodity Finance at Calyon - interview with Jean-François Marchal, Global Head of Export Trade & Commodity Finance, Calyon
Export Trade and Commodity Finance at Calyon: 4 business lines
Export Finance: Calyon's acknowledged expertise – Henri d'Ambrières, Global Head of Export Finance, Calyon
Structured Commodity Finance: Calyon, a global leader – Alain Fanaie, Global Head of Structured Commodity Finance, Calyon
Transactional Commodity Finance: Calyon, a global expertise based in Geneva - Pierre Glauser, Global Head of Transactional Commodity Finance
Trade Finance: strengthened positions - Emmanuel Bouvier d'Yvoire, Global Head of Trade Finance, Calyon
|
|
|
 Export Trade & Commodity Finance at Calyon
| |
|
Jean-François Marchal, Global Head of Export Trade & Commodity Finance, Calyon |
 |
|
 |
The quality of our trading and financial engineering teams, together with our structuring capabilities, makes all the difference! |
 |
|
Calyon's Export Trade & Commodity Finance (ETCF) division is growing strongly thanks to the merger which enabled us to reach critical size in many market segments. We provide an array of solutions at global level that meet the financing and payment needs of our clientele of importers, exporters and international traders.
Calyon is one of just four or five banks worldwide that offer such an extensive range of services to such a wide variety of clients involved in cross-border transactions, including:
- Large importing and exporting counterparties,
- Commodities traders,
- Commodities producers in emerging market countries,
- Banks.
The division is organised into two specific units and four business lines: - a "flow" products unit covering Trade Finance and Transactional Commodity Finance, which as a rule involves short-term transactions;
- a "structured" products unit covering Structured Commodity Finance and Export Finance, which provides assistance to our clients for their longer-term transactions and projects and are based on a more structured or personalised approach.
Calyon, one of the world's major players - Calyon is the global leader in Structured Commodity Finance according to Dealogic's ranking of the top Bookrunners in 2005.
- In 2006, Calyon was ranked in fourth position in Export Credits in Dealogic's ranking of mandated arrangers. In 2005, Calyon was placed second for Coface credits (Dealogic).
- Calyon has particularly solid positions in Transactional Commodity Finance in Geneva, one of the global centres for this activity.
- Calyon's Trade Finance business has grown considerably over the past two years with the support of Senior Management.
Calyon is recognised in the trade press on a regular basis and in March 2006, received several awards from the magazine Trade Finance for its activities in 2005, including: - 2005 Deal of the Year for its role in a structured commodity financing for Sonangol (USD 3 billion pre-financing of crude oil),
Competitive advantages- A broad range of products,
- Size, providing us a large capacity for intervention,
- Financial engineering and innovation: Calyon has substantial financial engineering and structuring capabilities combined with an aptitude for developing innovative tailored financing arrangements. In 2006, for example, we were selected as the lead bank in the synthetic financing of the purchase of rolling stock by MAV, the Hungarian rail operator. For this export transaction, which we arranged with a Swiss credit insurer, we devised an arrangement that incorporated the premium enabling our client not to pay the upfront premium usually requested by credit insurers but to incorporate it into the financing package over the duration of the facility.
- An operating network at all points on the globe: we have very extensive global coverage, with a total staff of 250 professionals serving our clients from operations centres in the main exporting and importing countries. We can also mobilise the additional skills of Calyon employees in the 55 countries where we are present. Our principal centre for Trade Finance and Export Credit is in Paris, while in Geneva our relationship managers centralise our Transactional Commodity Finance activity and in London a team working with Senior Bankers deals with structured commodity finance. Both in France and abroad, our Senior Bankers are supported by a dedicated sales force specialised by client.
Export Finance: Calyon's acknowledged expertise - Henri d'Ambrières, Global Head of Export Finance, Calyon | |
Calyon provides clients with solutions for financing their capital equipment exports and certain of their foreign investments. As Henri d'Ambrières, Calyon's head of Export Finance, explains, most of our transactions involve setting up buyer or supplier export credits guaranteed by public credit insurance agencies. We also offer co-financing arrangements with multilateral financial institutions such as the World Bank's International Finance Corporation unit (IFC), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), and financing loans with or without private insurance coverage. Our transactions also sometimes include other products such as letters of credit, forfaiting, capital market transactions, etc.
Export Finance is organised as a global business line at Calyon and has a staff of nearly 90 divided into three units:- A unit designed for importing clients with four "import" areas (Africa and the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the Americas). Located in Paris, it relies on our international network of locally-based Senior Bankers,
- The "export" group serves exporting clients and has close relations with credit insurers, with specialists based in 15 countries supported by coordination units in Paris and Hong Kong,
- A "Loan Documentation and Negociation" team is responsible for documenting transactions and monitoring risks.
Calyon's competitive advantages
- Calyon has been involved in this business for many years. We are currently one of the top 10 global arrangers of multisource financing and have outstanding references with European and Asian export credit agencies.
- In 2006, Dealogic ranked Calyon the fourth-largest mandated arranger of export credits.
- Calyon is the second-largest bank for Coface credits (2005), and has succeeded in maintaining its positions as one of the top two foreign banks for export credits with Sace (Italy) and one of the top five lead arrangers of ECGD (UK) facilities, according to the two insurers.
- In March 2006, Calyon received three Export Finance 2005 awards from the magazine Trade Finance, for Kia Motors' investments in its new plant in Slovakia, Thales' sale of avionics systems for Sukhoi's new regional aircraft (Russia) and the purchase of Chinese telecommunications equipments by Digitel (Philippines).- Well known for its ability to advise, arrange and underwrite multisource and multilateral financing transactions, Calyon works with the world's main exporters and with major investors and borrowers in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas.
- Calyon is backed by a strong international network.
- Calyon capitalises on its expertise to offer new financing structures and develop new products. "Our ability to innovate, decipher the market's requirements and provide quality execution are competitive advantages enabling us to meet our clients' needs, while favouring the development of long-term relationships", sums up Henri d'Ambrières.
Sustained business in 2005 with official recognition from Trade Finance magazine
Significant deals in 2006
Calyon, a global leader in Structured Commodity Finance - Alain Fanaie, Global Head of Structured Commodity Finance, Calyon | |
The Structured Commodity Finance business line is centralised in London and proposes structured finance solutions with repayments guaranteed by the proceeds from commodity exports.
Alain Fanaie, Global Head of Structured Commodity Finance, explains that Calyon offers financing solutions to commodities producers and exporters throughout the world. The financing is guaranteed by the export flows resulting from agreements between the producer of the commodity (oil, aluminium, etc.) and the buyer, often based in an OECD country.
The business line's 25 professionals are specialised by geographic region – Africa/Latam, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Russian, Asia and Central Asia – and are supported by dedicated units in our international network in New York, Hong Kong and Moscow. Their regional expertise enables our specialists to develop a thorough knowledge of local conditions in countries and regions so that they can meet our clients' needs over a wide range of commodities.
Calyon's product range is broad and includes: - Export pre-financing, i.e. direct loans to producers,
- Pre-payment, i.e. limited recourse loans to buyers to finance the pre-payment of a producer's exports,
- Barter, i.e. the exchange of one product for an amount of another product of equivalent value,
- Swaps, i.e. the exchange of one product for the same product but of different quality,
- Processing financing, i.e. the financing of the import of commodities, paid back out of the proceeds from the export of finished or partially processed goods.
Strengths- Calyon offers products for a broad range of commodities including energy (oil, gas, petrochemicals and derivative products, metals (aluminium, nickel, zinc, copper and steel) and agricultural products (sugar, cacao, etc.).
- Calyon also covers a wide geographic range thanks to our international network and care in maintaining strong origination capabilities.
Solid track record
Calyon is a significant player in commodity structured finance.- In 2005, Calyon was the global leader according to Dealogic's ranking of global bookrunners.
- In addition, for the same year Dealogic ranked Calyon second global Mandated Lead Arranger for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.
- Calyon received the Best Bank in Africa award in June 2006 from the magazine Trade and Forfaiting Review, in particular in recognition of the Sonangol deal, the largest transaction in Africa in 2005.
- The magazine Trade Finance named it the 2005 Deal of the Year.
- Calyon was also no. 5 mandated arranger worldwide in Dealogic's first half 2006 rankings.
Significant client references
Calyon is an active global player on all five continents on a wide range of commodities.
Transactional Commodity Finance: Calyon, a global expertise based in Geneva - Pierre Glauser, Global Head of Transactional Commodity Finance | |
The Transactional Commodity Finance unit under Pierre Glauser, its Global Head, is based in Geneva. It addresses the needs of major international traders and producers involved in commodities markets, and offers financing and payment-security solutions for the flows of raw materials and semi-finished short term goods between producers and consumers.
Transactional Commodity Finance went through a period of particularly strong growth in the early part of the decade with the rise in raw material prices. The business benefited from exceptionally favourable market conditions in 2005 in particular with regard to energy, as production constraints combined with sharp increases in demand mainly in Asia and the United States. The price of oil rose from USD 42 a barrel in early 2005 to more than USD 70 in 2006. "This significant volatility benefited client arbitrage transactions and strengthened the role played by banks in both qualitative and quantitative terms", explains Pierre Glauser. "Banks were gradually led to play a key role not only in financing production but also in securing the supply of commodities whose prices rose constantly."
Global coverage
This business line was strengthened by the merger of the client portfolios and staff of Crédit Lyonnais and Crédit Agricole Indosuez in 2004, which enabled the unit to reach overall critical size.
With its base in Geneva, the world capital in this area, the business line relies on a dedicated staff of account managers and a documentary credit department with extensive experience in commodities. Calyon is ranked as the sector's second-largest bank in Geneva, one of the world's biggest centres for transactional commodity finance with literally millions of tons of goods traded each year.
After consolidating its global head office operation in Geneva, Calyon turned to its international network, setting up full-time structures in Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore and Moscow. Calyon's next plans are to focus on the Americas and develop business in Brazil and the United States by the end of 2007.
Products and areas of expertise- Documentary credits,
- Guarantees,
- Short term treasury multicurrency line,
- Exchange rates hedging,
- Structured trading in soft goods and metals – pre-financing, tolling, etc.,
- Hedging product promotion through Calyon Financial,
- Geographical Risks buy-out on well established counterparts (States and similar).
Clients
Calyon works with major international trading companies in well-established sectors: - Energy (primarily oil and oil-based products but also bio-fuels),
- Steel and non-ferrous metals,
- Agricultural products (grains, cotton and oil seeds).
Trade finance is one of Calyon's core businesses.
It continues to develop steadily thanks to its: - Specialised sales force with operations in nearly 40 countries serving the needs of all the Calyon and Crédit Agricole clients involved in international trade (exporters and importer of goods and services, and banks);
- Extensive product range (documentary credits and payments, international guarantees, non-recourse purchase of commercial receivables of all types, or forfaiting) capable of providing solutions for securing and financing cross-border commercial transactions;
- Substantial capacity for underwriting counterparty risk, vis-à-vis both financial institutions (possible confirmation by a large number of banks in nearly 80 emerging market countries) and importing companies;
- Web-based remote banking application, the easy-to-use secure transactional portal Optimtrade (multi-site function, possibility of interfacing with users' in-house systems);
- Partnership agreement with TradeCard, a platform enabling users (buyers and suppliers) to automate the supply chain entirely and also providing online access to related financial services);
- Advisory services for international trade transactions (assessment of country risks, structuring of transactions, counterparty risk hedging strategies, off-balance sheet accounting, etc.).
Emmanuel Bouvier d'Yvoire, Global Head of Trade Finance, says: "we are frequently congratulated by our clients for the high quality of our back office services, which in this area of activity also provide advice to clients and set us apart from the competition".
|
|
|  |