Yesterday, at a historic ceremony near the White House, a Ukrainian State-owned enterprise, NAEK Energoatom, and a special purpose statutory Trust, have concluded a $250 million loan transaction to finance the bulk of a new Ukrainian Centralized Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility being built in the Chernobyl exclusionary zone.

The low-interest, 20-year loan, is notable for a number of important reasons:

§  It is the first time i political risk insurance provided by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) – a US Government agency- has been used to issue bonds in the US capital markets, in order to finance a state-owned enterprise.

§  Based on the insurance, and its merits, the project received Aa2 credit rating from Moody’s, which in turn allowed the project to benefit from significantly lower financing costs for the financing of the project.

§  The project marks unique collaboration between the US and Ukrainian governments, major US public and private companies and a state-owned enterprise.