National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), the emirate’s biggest lender, plans to expand corporate loans in Latin America by about 20 per cent this year.
NBAD will boost lending and offer other types of products to Latin American companies that do business in countries the bank considers a priority, including those in the Far East, Middle East and Africa, Angela Martins, the bank's chief representative in Brazil, said in Sao Paulo.
Loans linked to Latin America should rise to more than US$720 million by the end of this year, Ms Martins said.
NBAD’s businesses include hedging, providing exchange-rate transactions for currencies with low trading volume and distributing Latin American loans and bonds in the Middle East, with a focus on Brazil, Chile and Peru.
“Since we did many deals with banks in 2013, this year we plan to focus more on companies,” Ms Martins said.
Examples of companies that meet the bank’s criteria include Rio de Janeiro-based Vale, the world’s largest iron-ore producer, and Sao Paulo-based JBS, the biggest beef producer, according to Martins. She also cited BRF, the poultry exporter with headquarters in Sao Paulo.
Abu Dhabi’s largest banks are expanding overseas to reduce their dependence on local real estate markets and to access trade flows across the Middle East, Africa and Asia that NBAD has said might generate as much as $137 billion in corporate-banking deals and advisory assignments for the industry.
NBAD also plans hubs in cities including Singapore, Hong Kong, London, Paris and Washington, chief executive Alex Thursby said in October.
The bank has about $600m in loans outstanding in Brazil after opening a representative office in Sao Paulo last year, according to Ms Martins.
In June, it loaned $100 million to Itau Unibanco, Latin America’s largest bank by market value, as part of a syndicate that provided the Sao Paulo-based company a three-year, $1.23bn term loan and a four-year, $270m loan.
NBAD also participated in the $210m loan to Banco Santander Brasil signed in December.
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