Last month FMO and Banco del Pais of Honduras celebrated the closing of a USD 86 million syndicated transaction to support the much needed private sector development with long term funding. Banco del Pais is the 5th largest bank in Honduras with total assets of USD 1.3 billion and is part of the Banco Industrial group with presence in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The bank was founded in 1992, acquired by the Banco Industrial group in 2007 and currently employs over 2000 people in Honduras.
FMO was mandated as lead arranger and managed to arrrange USD 26 million 3-5 years debt from 6 commercial banks from Guatemala and Panama. All banks confirmed that this is their first Honduras exposure. Furthermore, FMO introduced BIO (USD 15 million) and DEG (USD 20 million) to Banpais and took USD 25 million on its own books. This landmark transaction is a successful restart of FMO on the Latin American syndications market. In the February Latam league tables FMO showed up in the top 10 after big names such as Deutsche, Wells Fargo and BoA.
