Plan­ning Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is con­fi­dent that IDB In­vest’s US$150m deal with the Massy Group will be a per­fect in­cu­ba­tor for fu­ture col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the bank and the Gov­ern­ment.

The Min­is­ter made this pre­dic­tion while ad­dress­ing the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the deal at the Hy­att Re­gency on Mon­day.

“I want to say that whilst it might have ap­peared that there may have been some chal­lenges in fi­nal­is­ing this project, I think this is go­ing to help us. The IDB, IDB in­vest, as well as the Min­istry of Plan­ning, to be able to use this, in a sense, as a bit of a test case for us. Be­cause there were a num­ber of meet­ings we had with IDB in­vest, and it’s al­ways im­por­tant that we get it right,” said Beck­les who ar­rived at the cer­e­mo­ny af­ter the sign­ing due to swear­ing in of the Cab­i­net on Mon­day.

Beck­les, who was ini­tial­ly un­sure if she would be able to at­tend un­til her re-ap­point­ment in the post, was adamant she should speak at the event giv­en the ex­ten­sive work she had done in se­cur­ing the deal be­tween IDB In­vest and Massy Group, which is ti­tled Ad­vance Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment in the Caribbean and Be­yond.

She said the suc­cess of the project is ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean re­gion, not­ing that it was an ex­pan­sion of the IDB’s in­vest­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“The IDB In­vest port­fo­lio in Trinidad and To­ba­go in­cludes five op­er­a­tions, with com­pa­nies such as Home Mort­gage Bank, Trinidad and To­ba­go Mort­gage Fi­nance Com­pa­ny , and Trinidad Tis­sues Ltd. With to­day’s sign­ing, the to­tal val­ue of this port­fo­lio will rise to US$307 mil­lion,’ said Beck­les.

Massy’s deputy group CEO, James McLetchie, said the deal had reaf­firmed the am­bi­tion and strat­e­gy im­ple­ment­ed by the Massy group, and the “in­no­v­a­tive fi­nanc­ing” al­lows the group the con­tin­ue its growth. He stressed that it would al­so help with the com­pa­ny’s push to be­come a net for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tor.

“This re­la­tion­ship po­si­tions us, not on­ly for fi­nanc­ing in 2025 but more im­por­tant­ly, be­yond and as we want to be­come a stronger net con­trib­u­tor of US dol­lars in our coun­try. Some of that fi­nanc­ing will have to come from out­side of this mar­ket. This is the first step with a part­ner that is well es­tab­lished in­ter­na­tion­al­ly to help us ac­cess cap­i­tal out­side of this mar­ket,” he said.

Last month, the Massy board ap­proved a long-term fi­nanc­ing pack­age among the com­pa­ny, its whol­ly owned sub­sidiary, Massy In­te­grat­ed Re­tail Ltd and IDB In­vest.

The fi­nanc­ing to­tals US$150 mil­lion in un­se­cured fund­ing, com­pris­ing US$90 mil­lion in term fi­nanc­ing with a ten-year tenor, a 36-month grace pe­ri­od and a US$60 mil­lion in re­volv­ing sup­ply chain fi­nanc­ing, with an ini­tial five-year avail­abil­i­ty, struc­tured in two tranch­es—a US$35 mil­lion com­mit­ted im­port fi­nance loan and a US$25 mil­lion un­com­mit­ted fa­cil­i­ty for im­port fi­nance and ac­counts payable.