GuarantCo provided a 100 per cent guarantee to support a USD 75 million debt facility for Robust International to construct a new cashew nut processing plant in Nigeria.

The debt facility was provided by a Symbiotics-arranged bond platform, which in turn issued notes with the benefit of the GuarantCo guarantee. These notes have been subscribed to in full by M&G Investments.

The transaction was executed in record time due to the successful replication of two recent transactions in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, again in collaboration with M&G Investments and Symbiotics.

The new plant in Ogun State will be of extensive benefit to the local economy, with procurement of cashew nuts from c. 10,000 primarily low-income smallholder farmers. There is an expected increase in export revenue (c. USD 335 million) and procurement from local supply chain over the lifetime of the guarantee.

The plant will incorporate functionality to convert waste by-products into value-added biomass and biofuel inputs to enhance the environmental impact of the transaction.

It is anticipated that up to 900 jobs will be created, with as many as 78 per cent to be held by women. Robust also has a target to gradually increase the share of procurement from women farmers, from 15 per cent to 25 per cent by 2028, as it reaches new regions in Nigeria and extends its ongoing gender-responsive outreach programme for farmers.

Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest cashew producers of c. 250-300k tonnes of raw cashew nuts annually, yet currently less than 10 per cent are processed domestically. Most raw nuts are exported unprocessed, forfeiting up to 80 per cent of their potential export value and adding exposure to foreign exchange fluctuations. This additional plant will more than double Robust’s existing cashew processing capacity from 100 MT per day to 220 MT per day to help reduce this structural gap.

The transaction is aligned to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals 2 (Zero Hunger) and 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure).