TDB, shareholders of Cable & Wireless meet President Faure |26 February 2020

Mr Awori and his delegation during the meeting with President Faure (Photo source: State House)

The chief operating officer of the Trade Development Bank, Michael Awori accompanied by Andrew Bainbridge, chairman of the Cable & Wireless board and Francis Chang Leng paid a courtesy call on President Danny Faure at State House yesterday morning.

After the meeting, Mr Awori spoke to the press and noted that “we financed the takeover transaction of Cable & Wireless which is one of the major transactions on the island to date. We have a long history of supporting Seychelles and today we paid a courtesy call on the president and went over the past projects and also discussed on other possible avenues. We financed the transaction and part of leading that transaction we have a board observer seat on the board of Cable & Wireless as a non-executive role. We also financed the Eden Island Project, a landmark project to the Seychelles. It was quite a big success. We also financed a number of institutions including Air Seychelles.”

Andrew Bainbridge, a British citizen but naturalised Seychellois and chairperson of the Cable & Wireless board noted that “we turned Cable & Wireless into a Seychellois company and this is a first of its kind here. We are hoping that provides a template for similar future transactions across the region. In Seychelles, we think Cable & Wireless is in an increasingly competitive environment and this is good for both the population and us. Our board meeting is set for tomorrow (today) where we will look at the forecast for this year and we are delighted that the management is projecting an increase in jobs this year with better services. It is too early to predict for a price change or services and we will get back to the population after the board meeting.”

For his part, Mr Chang Leng spoke further on the relationship the Trade Development Bank (TDB) has with Seychelles. “TDB financed other projects such as Félicité Island, Seychelles Petroleum Company (Seypec) and others. They are very much involved and they assist Seychelles in terms of development.”

TDB headquarters are based in Burundi and Mauritius and in November 2019, they issued a press release regarding Cable & Wireless Seychelles entitled ‘TDB arranges Seychelles’ biggest private sector deal in a decade’. Cable & Wireless Seychelles was acquired by local investors, with TDB as mandated lead arranger. With a total deal size of US $107.5 million, US $70 million of which was arranged by TDB, the acquisition of Cable & Wireless Seychelles (CWS) from Liberty Latin America, by CWS Investment Ltd – a group of Seychellois entrepreneurs – is Seychelles’ biggest deal in a decade. It is also TDB’s largest transaction on the island to date”.

They also mentioned that the debt financing required for CWS’ acquisition was arranged and led by TDB with the participation of Absa Group Limited and ABC Banking Corporation of Mauritius, with the assistance of the Seychelles-based Nouvobanq.

Vidya Gappy