36.65 million (USD)

Product Line	IFC Investment (million USD)
Risk Management
Guarantee
Loan
Equity	36.65

* These investment figures are indicative

Project Outcomes Grade-A warehouses involve large, modern, flexible and well-located buildings with adequate service infrastructure, constructed to optimize distribution configurations, and facilitate scale, throughput and consolidation of inventories and transportation. By offering transport services and simplifying distribution, Grade-A warehouses provide around 35 percent savings on a per-unit basis compared to Grade-B warehousing, thus increasing return on investment for tenants and improving the economic attractiveness of their investments in a target location. 80 percent of the current industrial and warehousing supply in Morocco is of low quality, inadequately managed, and geographically concentrated. The Project will significantly increase the availability of integrated 3PL services through building Grade-A warehousing space and expanding its transport network in Morocco directly addressing the access gap. Furthermore, global firms (3PL clients) are required to monitor and reduce their carbon footprint across their supply chain, which entails they will seek logistics service providers with environmental management measures. Market Outcomes Access to high quality and efficient 3PL services can be instrumental to the productivity of services and manufacturing firms and can influence firms’ decisions to invest or expand in a given country. The 3PL market in Morocco is nascent, with very few players providing integrated transport and warehousing services. The Project is expected to consolidate the market through the acquisition of smaller logistics operators and reallocate these assets to more productive use, by a Company with improved managerial and technological capabilities. As BLS gains further market share, its advanced digital capabilities can set the industry’s quality standards, and its commercial success can potentially incentivize new entrants to the market.

Financial Additionality – IFC Own Account Equity: IFC’s equity of up to US$36 million translates to an up to 20% stake in the Company, IFC equity investment is expected to strengthen the creditworthiness and governance of BLS, while also providing patient capital to support BLS’ investment plan and guide the Company in their preparation towards the planned IPO. Non-financial Additionality - Knowledge, innovation, and capacity building: IFC will provide expertise and capacity building that are material to the realization of the project’s development impact. More specifically, as a pre-IPO investor, IFC will help BLS transition from a family-owned business towards preparation for an IPO through corporate governance capacity building. This will be further confirmed prior to the IRM. Standard Setting: IFC will conduct a diagnostic on the Company’s Environmental and Social (E&S) mechanisms and provide guidelines for improvement where needed, to bring the Company’s practices in line with international best standards.

This is a Category B project according to IFC’s Policy on Environmental and Social Sustainability because BLS’ business activities have limited adverse E&S risks or impacts that are few in number, generally sitespecific, largely reversible, and readily avoided by implementing mitigation measures. Key E&S issues reviewed included: a) the company’s ESMS and staffing to manage operations in line with IFC PSs; (b) adequate E&S risk assessments and management of the proposed operations; (c) assurance of fair, safe and healthy working conditions for employees and contract workers during construction and operation in line with IFC PSs especially on gender-based violence (GBV); (d) emissions and wastewater management in line with the World Bank Group (WBG) environmental, health and safety (EHS) Guidelines; (e) energy efficiency of the operations; (f) community risks due to security and traffic; and (g) community grievance mechanism.

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.