Soufflet 2

completed

IFC investment (the “Project”) involves providing a multi-country A-Loan of up to EUR60 million to finance Soufflet’s operations in six countries of the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region, namely Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russia, Serbia, Romania, and Poland. Soufflet will use the proceeds of the new IFC corporate loan to (i) originate malting barley and other crops, (ii) increase in-kind pre-financing to farmers, and (iii) process grain into malt. The new IFC loan will be committed as a 5-year A-Loan with a revolving feature.Established in France in 1900, Soufflet (the “Group” or the “Company”) is a mid-size global agribusiness group. The Group started to expand into the ECA region in 1998, as a strategy to follow its customers. Today, the Company operates in nine countries in the ECA region, including the six that will be financed by the new IFC loan. Soufflet has 9 silos and 6 malting plants in these six countries and their share represents about 15% of the grain originated by the Group, and 27% of its malt production. Core businesses of Soufflet operations under the Project include grain procurement, malt production, grain storage and trading and distribution of agricultural inputs including crop protection products. Soufflet is an existing IFC client. In 2009, IFC invested US$12.5 million in an annual renewable loan to support Soufflet working capital needs for its Ukraine trading division (Project # 27510). In January 2011, IFC extended a corporate A-Loan facility to Soufflet amounting to EUR60 million (Project#30067 and Project#30588). Environmental, health and safety (EHS) performance for the existing investment is satisfactory and ESAP’s action items have been effectively completed. Information on the EHS aspects of the Projects can be found at the IFC website.