Rio Grande Terminal de Conteineres (TECON)

active

Tecon Rio Grande S.A. (TRG) was awarded a 25-year concession through a public tender in 1997 to expand and operate the container terminal in the port of Rio Grande, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. TRG bid R$151 million for the contract. The Terminal was the second Brazilian container facility to be privatized and by 2004 was the second largest container terminal in Brazil, accounting for approximately 12% of the country's total container movement. The shareholders of TRG were Wilson Sons de Administração e Comércio LTDA (Wilson) (50.2%); Serveng Civilsan S.A. Empresas Associadas de Engenharia (Serveng) (24.9%); and Concorp TRG Projectos Portuários S.A. (Concorp) (24.9%). Wilson was a Brazilian maritime group which had operated in Brazil since 1837. It was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ocean Wilson Holdings Limited (“OWH”), a UK-listed company. Serveng was a privately held, mid-size Brazilian engineering and construction company while Concorp was a special purpose vehicle that was majority-owned by directors of the Fator Group, a privately held Brazilian financial services company. The minimum investment requirements for the contract were US$38 million for the first three years (actual investment projections amounted to US$54 million). Additional investment commitments for the subsequent 10 years were US$43 million, mainly to set up new docks and cranes. As of December 2003, the company had invested US$53 million in construction works and equipment. In December 1998, the project recieved IFC financing of a US$31 million loan comprising an A-Loan of US$7.5 million, a B-loan of US$18 million and a C-Loan of US$5.5 million. The initital investment supported the purchase of four cranes, a 300-meter extension of an existing quay, and the repairs and upgrades of various facilities. In June of 2004, IFC approved a US$8.1 million A Loan and parallel B Loan of the same amount to help fianance the proposed US$25 million terminal expansion project. The expansion was to increase the annual capacity of the Terminal from 300,000 container-moves to about 525,000 container-moves, easing capacity constraints and allowing TRG to capture unmet demand for the Terminal’s services. As of December 2009, Tecon Rio Grande was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wilson, Sons de Comercio Ltda. The sponsors invested US$ 100 million in the project between 1997 and 2008. In March 2011, Tecon Rio Grande was granted a US$ 17.6 million (BRL 28.7 million) loan from the state-owned bank BNDES to finance the expansion of the container terminal (the investment amount was not available).