Angola: State diamond company Endiama owes $50M to banks for ‘failed projects’ – chairman

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Angola: State diamond company Endiama owes $50M to banks for ‘failed projects’ – chairman

9:14 CAT | 17 Jan 2022

File photo: Lusa

The debt that the National Diamond Company of Angola (Endiama) owes to Angolan banks, due to “failed projects,” was around US$150 million (131 million euros) and most of it has already been paid off, the company said on Monday.

The information was provided today by the chairman of the board of Endiama, José Ganga Júnior, noting that the overall debt was with Banco de Fomento Angola (BFA), Banco Angolano de Investimentos (BAI) and Banco de Poupança e Crédito (BPC).

At least US$100 million (87 million euros) of the overall debt has already been paid off, he said, following “renegotiation that made it possible to obtain some debt forgiveness”.

Ganga Junior, who was speaking at a press conference today to present the 2021 results and projections for 2022, said that his board had found “relevant debts that were not even debts resulting from direct loans obtained by the company”.

These were “debts in which Endiama at the time provided its guarantee for projects of companies that went bankrupt, that for various reasons abandoned operations and, naturally, the debt remained and was a limitation in terms of opening up in the financial market,” he explained.

The non-resettlement of debt, “imposed several hurdles on the company,” particularly in seeking funding from banks to develop projects, a period in which the debt with the three banks was around US$150 million.

Renegotiation and definition of ways of paying off debt,” Ganga Júnior noted, was the mechanism used by the company which “made it possible to obtain some debt forgiveness, both in terms of principal and interest”.

“We also defined a plan to repay this debt and today it has been fully settled with regard to BFA and BAI. With BPC they transferred their credit rights for the collection of the ‘recredit’ that is currently underway,” he noted.

As part of the reorganisation, he noted, the debt settled now totalled about US$100 million and the actions in that area, he said, were very important,” because the aim was to put the company on the stock exchange.

Part of Endiama’s share capital (40%) will be privatised via the Angolan Debt and Securities Exchange (Bodiva), as part of the Angolan government’s Privatisation Programme (ProPriv).

With the repayment of that debt, he noted, Endiama “now has its doors open,” and is currently negotiating with BAI for funding of US$100 million (86.7 million euros) for its projects underway, specifically the Luaxe mine.

“We have already managed to obtain funding of US$20 million (17.5 million euros) from Banco Caixa Geral de Angola, for example, and this was the result of the work we did to clear that debt,” he said.

Monday’s press conference also marked Endiama’s 41st anniversary.

Source: Lusa