Standard Bank backs Helios Towers with US$29m social trade finance facility

Standard Bank has provided Helios Towers with a US$29m documentary credit facility to finance telecommunications equipment and services across Africa, marking the bank’s first trade finance transaction structured under a sustainable finance framework.

The facility will support the procurement and importation of infrastructure used by Helios Towers to expand and increase the density of its mobile tower network. It will also provide payment certainty to suppliers while supporting the company’s working-capital requirements and wider investment programme.

Structured in accordance with the Loan Market Association’s Social Loan Principles, the financing is intended to expand digital connectivity in underserved and remote markets. Helios Towers owns and operates shared telecommunications infrastructure used by mobile network operators across several African countries.

The structure connects a conventional documentary trade instrument with measurable social objectives. Letters of credit and related facilities can give overseas suppliers greater confidence that payment will be made once the agreed shipping and documentary conditions have been met, while allowing importers to manage procurement without making the full payment at the outset.

Benoit Samouilhan, global transaction banker at Standard Bank Corporate and Investment Banking, said the transaction combined a social documentary credit facility with a cross-border funding solution. He added that the structure supported Helios Towers’ expansion while helping to extend digital connectivity to communities that remain poorly served.

Alex Carter, group finance director at Helios Towers, said the facility provided “the flexibility and certainty needed to support our ongoing infrastructure investments” as the company seeks to extend network coverage.

The transaction reflects the widening use of environmental and social classifications in trade finance. Sustainable finance has traditionally been more closely associated with term loans and project funding, but lenders are increasingly applying recognised principles to short-term facilities linked to imports, exports and working capital.

For Standard Bank, the deal provides a model that could potentially be replicated in sectors where imported goods support identifiable social outcomes. For Helios Towers, it provides both supplier-payment assurance and liquidity as capital is deployed across multiple markets.