Off the TODO list: The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has signed off on a USD 45 mn loan to EGX-listed baked goods producer Edita Food Industries to finance growth at home and regionally. Edita will use the proceeds to support working capital, fund expansion, and finance debt repayments, it said in a press release (pdf) yesterday. The facility will have a tenor of eight years with a two-year grace period, Edita said, without disclosing the rate of interest.

This isn’t the first time Edita and the IFC have hooked up: The international lender lent the baked goods producer USD 20 mn in 2019, helping propel Edita into Morocco two years later. Half of this will be refinanced by the new loan, Edita said in an EGX disclosure (pdf) yesterday.

Where’s the growth going to come from? Edita noted that the funding will “allow the company to capitalize on emerging opportunities in new markets” while growing at home both organically and through acquisition.

Edita is borrowing to grow: The new loan will be used in part to fund fresh capex, which the company wants to more than double to EGP 800 mn this year. Those spending plans don’t include the EGP 400 mn it plans to inject into Edita Frozen Food Industries — previously Fancy Foods — which it acquired in May. The transaction is being partly funded by loans worth EGP 390 mn from the National Bank of Kuwait.

FX + jobs: The funding from the IMF will “build Edita’s capacity to withstand shocks and stresses from forex shortage and inflation” and support jobs, according to a disclosure on the IFC’s website. The lender said the finance will protect more than 7k jobs in Egypt and allow the creation of 400 new jobs.

The Edita loan comes less than a week after the lender agreed to lend USD 25 mn to Kandil Steel to “support the company’s operational and financial resilience” amid the FX crunch and soaring input costs.

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