The Company was created in 1996 by three entrepreneurs, Mr. Abdelazizi Makhloufi, Mr. Moncef Rekik, and Mr. Abderazzak Tounsi. The original founders still own directly or indirectly 62.2% of the Company, while local private equity funds, Sicar Amen and BIAT Capital Risque invested in the Company in 2010 and 2011 and own respectively 25.46% and 12.31% of the Company’s shares.

The Project cost is estimated at US$33 million, comprising capital expenditure and permanent working capital financing. The proposed IFC investment comprises of an A loan in an amount of up to US$16 million equivalent, as well a B loan of up to US$10 million equivalent.

16.0 million (USD)

Product Line	IFC Investment (million USD)
Risk Management
Guarantee
Loan	16.0
Equity

* These investment figures are indicative

Sfax, Tunisia

(1) Value addition: By allowing CHO to further develop its exports of branded products, the Project will allow the Company to capture more value add from the olive oil supply chain, and may provide demonstration impact for other Tunisian companies to develop sales of bottled oil as well.
(2) Farmers and rural employment. The Company sources olives from local farmers (50,000 tons/year) and olive oil from small olive processing mills (45,000 tons/year). In addition, the Company purchases, and processes about 30% of Tunisia''s production of pomace waste from mills. By growing its business, the Company will continue to support farmers and the private sector in rural areas.
(3) Jobs. The Project is expected to support approximately 405 direct jobs and create approximately 50 additional direct jobs in the next five years.

(1) Provision of the Company''s first foreign currency loan, which matches the Company''s FX revenues.
(2) Provision of long-term financing not easily obtainable from regional banks, and matching the Project''s long-term nature.
(3) Stamp of approval, as the Company is expanding overseas in America, Europe and Asia.
(4) Environmental and social (E&S) standards, which will help strengthen the Company''s E&S sustainability and provide demonstration effect to the Tunisian olive oil sector.
(5) Access to IFC''s industry knowledge and global network.

This proposed investment is expected to have limited environmental and social impacts which are expected to be site-specific and none is expected to be significant. Those impacts can be avoided or mitigated by adhering to recognized performance standards, procedures, guidelines and design criteria as described in the following sections. Thus, this is a Category B project in accordance with IFC’s Environmental and Social Sustainability Policy. The project is designed to avoid, minimize and manage E&S risks and impacts of the Company’s operations in compliance with Tunisian legal and regulatory requirements, IFC’s Performance Standards (PSs) and applicable World Bank Group (WBG) General and sector-specific (Vegetable Oil Production and Processing) Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Guidelines.



Key E&S risks associated with this investment are: (i) incomplete management plans and procedures for all the E&S risks and impacts identified throughout all of the Company’s operations (including those related to the environment, food safety, and occupational health and safety); (ii) incomplete and decentralized monitoring process to assess the management effectiveness related to environmental, food safety, and occupational health and safety issues across all operational units and reporting to senior management for follow up action in case additional resources are needed; (iii) incomplete HR policy and procedures manual to manage HR practices across all its operations including seasonal employees; and(iv) absence of a supply chain verification mechanism to assess the occupational health and safety practices of third-party mill operations.

Please refer to the related Environmental and Social Review Summary (ESRS) document for this project.

Please refer to the Environmental and Social Action Plan (ESAP) tab in the related Environmental and Social Review Summary (ESRS) document for this project.