Finance

In 2021, Covid-19 continued to have significant influence on the finance environment, although we saw a clear, positive evolution from the past year.

There was immense pressure on the banking industry during 2020, with major banks cutting their exposure to the commodity industry. In 2021, however, international banks began rebalancing their financing toward the larger commodity players, while the European debt capital market continued to provide liquidity, largely due to the renewed support of central banks.

LDC also opened a new chapter in 2021 from a financing perspective, with a reinforced credit profile and balance sheet.

In April, LDC (BBB – with positive outlook) successfully issued a new €500 million, 7-year, senior bond, which was met with such strong demand that it was three times oversubscribed.

Theclosing of Louis Dreyfus Company Holdings B.V.‘s strategic partnership agreement with ADQ in September 2021 further reinforced our credit profile and demonstrated our ability to maintain a liquid and flexible funding model in a context of overall high agri-commodity prices, while highlighting our strong position to invest in LDC’s growth plans.

This led to anupgraded public credit rating by S&P Global Ratings to ‘BBB/A-2 – with stable outlook in October, underlining LDC’s solid operating and financial performance.

These developments opened access to a new category of investors with larger funding capacity, and reinforced LDC’s existing access to debt capital markets and long-term funding sources, as we continue to maintain a financing model that supports both day-to-day business needs and strategic investments.

In parallel, and especially in response to potential challenges caused by Covid-19, LDC continued to carefully manage its available liquidity, keeping committed revolving credit facilities (RCFs), all of which now have a sustainability-linked interest rate mechanism in place, fully undrawn throughout 2021.