Plantations Et Huileries du Congo sa (PHC) #36439
Created at
2014-04-28
Last update
2023-01-11
4 Parents (Involvements as child)
ID
Name
Belgian Investment Company for Developing Countries (BIO)
Country of registration/origin
Belgium
Classification
Bilateral Development Bank / Development Finance Institution
Relationship
Tertiary investor/lender
Investment type
Debt financing
Loan amount
11 000 000
Loan date
21/12/2015
Comment
DEG, BIO, EAIF and FMO provide a long term loan facility in an amount of up to USD 49 million (DEG: USD 16.5 million, BIO: USD 11 million, EAIF: USD 5 million, FMO: USD 16.5 million).
The Development Finance Institutions (DFI) BIO of Belgium, CDC of the UK, DEG of Germany and FMO from the Netherlands have announced today that they will cease to be Lenders to PHC, the operating company of three longstanding palm oil plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The group of DFIs have sold their respective debt interests to Maku Holdings, an affiliate of Kuramo Capital Management.
The development banks cancelled 80% of PHC's debt and wrote off all of their shares in Feronia. On February 22, 2022, the last bits of their debt interests were sold for an undisclosed sum to Maku Holdings, an affiliate of Kuramo Capital.
ID
Name
Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Country of registration/origin
Congo, Dem. Rep.
Classification
State-/government (owned) company
Relationship
Parent company
Investment type
Shares/Equity
Ownership share
24.00 %
ID
Name
Straight KKM 2 Limited (KKM)
Country of registration/origin
Mauritius
Relationship
Parent company
Investment type
Shares/Equity
Ownership share
76.00 %
ID
Name
FMO (Netherlands Development Finance Company)
Country of registration/origin
Netherlands
Classification
Investment fund
Relationship
Tertiary investor/lender
Investment type
Debt financing
Loan amount
16 500 000
Loan date
21/12/2015
Comment
DEG, BIO, EAIF and FMO provide a long term loan facility in an amount of up to USD 49 million (DEG: USD 16.5 million, BIO: USD 11 million, EAIF: USD 5 million, FMO: USD 16.5 million).
On February 22, 2022, development banks – BIO of Belgium, CDC of the UK, DEG of Germany and FMO from the Netherlands – announced that they had sold off their remaining financial interests in Plantation et Huileries du Congo (PHC), the scandal-plagued company holding over 100,000 ha of concessions for oil palm plantations in the DR Congo. It follows the exit of the French development bank Proparco earlier in 2021.
This marks the end of a nine year period in which a consortium of many of the world's largest development banks spent over US$150 million propping up a company that acquired its land concessions through a Belgian colonial era land grab and that was involved in gross human rights violations and environmental crimes both before and during the development banks investments. It constitutes one of the most shocking examples of development bank complicity in the impoverishment, dispossession and repression of local communities in the global South.
0 Children (Involvements as parent)
1 Deals (Involvements as Operating company)
ID
Target country
Congo, Dem. Rep.
Current intention of investment
Biomass for biofuels Food crops Agriculture unspecified
Current negotiation status
Concluded (Contract signed)
Current implementation status
In operation (production)
Deal size
101 455 ha