ETI is owned by more than 2,600 ordinary shareholders, with no single controlling interest. As of July 22, 2007, eight institutional shareholders had shareholdings greater than 2%: Renaissance Direct Investments (19.26%), BIDC (6.21%), SSNIT (5.43%), Blakeney GP III Ltd-Main (5.35%), Interlink Securities Limited (4.86%), Paip-Pcap Sub 1 Limited (4.41%), Stanbic Nominees Nig. Ltd – Trading (3.80%) and ICMG Securities Limited (3.65%).

The total project cost is estimated at $350 million over the next 2-3 years. The proposed IFC investment is for IFC’s own account and includes an equity investment in ETI, and equity investment, subordinated loan, credit line, partial credit guarantee, and trade finance to selected subsidiaries of ETI.

125.0 million (USD)

Product Line	IFC Investment (million USD)
Risk Management
Guarantee
Loan	125.0
Equity	0.0

* These investment figures are indicative

ETI is headquartered in Lome, Togo. It has operations in 19 countries in West and Central Africa namely: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea (Conakry), Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé & Prίncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Chad and Togo; with plans to extend its presence to Eastern and Southern Africa. The Group has a network of over 400 branches and offices.

The project is expected to have several key development impacts:

- strengthening the banking sector, including in post-conflict and other very challenging markets;
- increasing credit access to SME, micro and housing sub-sectors;
- fostering regional integration; and
- ultimately creating employment opportunities for more people in the Sub-Saharan region.

IFC’s expected development contribution in the project is to provide a one-stop-shop offer to ETI in support of its new strategy of covering all of Sub-Saharan Africa and reaching underserved markets:

- providing long-term funding and capital to support ETI’s strategy;
- accompanying the Group in post-conflict countries and underserved markets; and
- providing advisory services to build and/or strengthen ETI’s corporate governance, capacity in housing finance, SME lending and microfinance.

This project has been classified as a Category FI project according to IFC’s Environmental and Social Review Procedure. During appraisal, IFC analyzed the FI portfolio and the activities proposed to be supported with IFC financing for types of transactions, size, tenor and industry sectors and determined the Applicable Performance Requirements based on an analysis of the potential Social and Environmental risks associated with the FI portfolio and considering IFC’s investment. The Applicable Performance Requirements are:

- The IFC FI Exclusion List;
- The applicable National Social and Environmental Laws and regulations; and
- The IFC Performance Standards.

IFC also reviewed ETI’s existing Social & Environmental Management System (SEMS) and its capacity to implement the same. Based on the review and the Applicable Performance Requirements, the project will be required to:

- Upgrade its existing SEMS to meet the above requirements, prior to disbursement to the satisfaction of IFC;
- Identify responsible, qualified persons to manage and implement the SEMS;
- Commit to implement the SEMS, to ensure that its investments/activities supported by IFC financing are in compliance with the Applicable Performance Requirements; and
- Submit a periodic report to IFC as per a format to be provided by IFC.