Lebanese reforms caught in the crossfire
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Boustany: SMEs are underserved |
In June, East Cameron Partners in Texas became the first US oil and gas company to borrow money via an Islamic securitization structure. Merrill Lynch acted as bookrunner – no surprise there. But the bank that structured the deal might have raised a few eyebrows since it was Lebanon’s BSEC. The Beirut company might be small in size – it has only 15 employees – but it thinks big. Its aim is to structure securitizations for SMEs globally. In four years, the bank has financed $250 million-worth of deals with clients in Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries as well as the US and Lebanon. It has identified a niche that other Lebanese financial institutions have been late to latch on to.
The East Cameron deal is arguably the bank’s most high profile transaction since Hanco Rent-a-Car’s Caravan 1 securitization in 2004. That $27.2 million transaction was the first true sale securitization in Saudi Arabia. The East Cameron deal was considerably bigger at $165.67