• To Review First-Ever 50-Year Public-Private Partnership

By Godson Umejiego, Correspondent US

Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) President and Chairman of the Board of Directors Kimberly A. Reed  has announced an Open Meeting of the EXIM Board of Directors will occur, via teleconference, on Thursday, August 13, 2020 at 10 am EDT.

The meeting will give stakeholders the opportunity to provide comment on the Private Export Funding Corporation’s (PEFCO) recent request to renew its 50-year public-private partnership with EXIM, which also will be complemented by presentations from EXIM and Private Export Funding Corporation (PEFCO) staff.

The meeting comes on the heels of Chairman Reed’s announcement last week that the agency is conducting its first-ever public review of PEFCO. “In addition to informing Congress and inviting public comment on the PEFCO request for the renewal of the EXIM-PEFCO partnership, it is also important that our Board of Directors and the public hear directly from stakeholders as part of the assessment process,” said Chairman Reed.

Members of the public who wish to attend the meeting, via teleconference, should register online HERE by close of business Monday, August 10, 2020. Individuals will then be directed to a Webinar registration page and provided call-in information.

Last week, EXIM invited public comment on two separate requests the agency has received from PEFCO. The first request relates to renewing PEFCO’s partnership with EXIM, which is set to expire on December 31, 2020. The second request relates to increasing the amount of the long-term general guarantee on the interest of Secured Notes issued by PEFCO. Both requests have been published in the Federal Register and the comments must be received on or before August 21, 2020, to be ensured consideration by EXIM’s Board of Directors.

PEFCO was created in 1970 with the assistance of EXIM to finance US exports by complementing the financing available from commercial banks and other lenders. PEFCO provides a broad range of export finance programmes as a direct lender and as a secondary market buyer of export loans originated by other lenders. To be eligible for financing by PEFCO, loans must be protected against nonpayment under an appropriate guarantee issued by EXIM. PEFCO entered into an official 25-year partnership with EXIM in 1971, which was renewed in 1994 through December 31, 2020. The partnership was created to ensure there always was a private alternative to EXIM direct loans and facilitate liquidity of EXIM-guaranteed and -insured transactions. PEFCO accomplishes these purposes by intermediating between the efficiency and immense scale of the US capital markets and the day-to-day funding needs of export financing for cases ranging from several hundred thousand dollars to several million dollars.