10.5.2007
Clean Globe International (CGI) receives EBRD financing to start up oil spill service centres in Russia and the CIS countries
Clean Globe International Ltd (CGI) is expanding its oil spill recovery service centres to Russia and the neighbouring countries. The project will be financed by loans and investments from EBRD, Finnfund, NEFCO and Lamor Group.
“CGI has developed the concept of regional Glean Globe Centres, which will provide its geographical region with a more efficient Oil Spill Response Service. By using locally available resources, the model is a cost-effective method that will guarantee efficient use of the best available technology and practices when environmental catastrophes occur,” says Lasse Parvinen, CEO of CGI.
The EBRD will make a EUR 30.5 million loan to Clean Globe and take a EUR 3 million equity stake. Complementing these investments are a EUR 10 million loan from the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation Ltd, which is also making a EUR 1 million equity investment, and a EUR 3 million equity investment by the Nordic Environment Finance Corp. After the investments, the new investors will hold a total of 35 percent of CGI’s shares.
“In total, CGI is investing EUR 107 million in this project. The investments made by EBRD, Finnfund and NEFCO total EUR 47.5 million. We have to be a credible and reliable company so that oil companies, our biggest clients, and authorities take us seriously as well. The fact that EBRD, Finnfund and NEFCO will be joining us as our partners increases our credibility,” says Bent Larsen, Chairman of the Lamor Group.
Investors see there is a need for CGI’s services
Oil companies will be investing more and more in services to manage possible oil spills. There is a growing need for companies offering these kinds of services because to create them in-house does not support oil companies’ core businesses.
According to Kevin Bortz, Director of EBRD’s Natural Resources Team, “this project is an important joint initiative in support of reducing the environmental footprint of vital natural resource development, and could establish a model for improving local access to ongoing environmental training and services as well as improving emergency responses”.
Tarja Myllymäki, the Business Development Director of Finnfund, thinks that the positive environmental effects are a key issue in Finnfund’s investments and says that “CGI’s concept manages to combine environmental protection and other environmental services in a way which we believe will be successful, sustainable and economically viable. We are looking forward to seeing CG centres on other continents eventually as well.”
“NEFCO is investing in CGI because their business is well in line with NEFCO’s mission. CGI’s service concept combines environmentally beneficial activities with financial returns. This type of business concept demonstrates that environmental projects can, if structured properly, be seen as profitable investments and not only as added costs,” says Magnus Rystedt, Managing Director at NEFCO.
More Information:
Lasse Parvinen
CEO
Clean Globe International Ltd
+ 358 40 525 5481
www.cleanglobe.eu
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is the largest single investor in countries from Central Europe to Central Asia. It was established in 1991 to support and nurture the new private sector in Central and Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet countries. It is owned by 61 countries and two intergovernmental institutions. But despite its public sector shareholders, it invests mainly in private enterprises, usually together with commercial partners.
The Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO) is a risk capital institution financing projects with an environmental effect in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic countries and Belarus. NEFCO was established in 1990, and is owned by the 5 Nordic countries. It focuses on both the private and the public sectors and has financed approximately 300 projects to date.
For more information see www.nefco.fi
The Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation Ltd (FINNFUND) is a Finnish development finance company that provides long-term risk capital for profitable private projects in developing countries and transition economies outside the EU. Since 1980 Finnfund has made more than one hundred investments in 30 countries. For more information see www.finnfund.fi