International Finance
Thompson Coburn has a strong niche practice focused on financings guaranteed or insured by the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank). The firm represents borrowers and lenders, many of whom are global financial institutions, in various types of Ex-Im Bank transactions, including long- and medium-term financings, projects, securitizations and credit guarantee facilities. We have significant experience in transactions involving the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), including the establishment of country funds and the financing of hotels. Our attorneys also have broad experience in transactions guaranteed or insured by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), International Finance Corporation (IFC), and regional development banks like the Inter-American Development Bank and the African Development Bank.
These financings have been utilized for the construction of such diverse projects as steel and power plants in India, an aluminum factory and hospitals in Russia, hotels in Turkey and Brazil, a wireless transmission facility and a mine in Mexico, a power project in Ghana, a bottling plant in Brazil, and housing projects in South Africa, India and several Latin American countries.
Some transactions have been extremely large, such as a multibillion-dollar foreign military sales financing of jet fighters and Ex-Im Bank guaranteed loans of hundreds of millions of dollars to a large state-owned oil company. Others have been somewhat smaller, such as the documentation of numerous medium-term Ex-Im Bank guaranteed loans and dozens of transactions utilizing Ex-Im Bank insurance products. The firm has represented clients in transactions that have been supported by European, Canadian or Asian export credit agencies, and we have worked on a number of financings that were based on currencies other than the U.S. dollar.