Repeated market and verbal interventions by the European Central Bank in late 2011 and throughout 2012 have gradually prised open the vice that threatened to squeeze eurozone bank funding. Banks from France, Germany and Netherlands in particular have historically been the core providers of both short-term commodity trade finance, and long-term project finance for commodity exploration and production, and power generation.
Federico Turegano, global head of natural resources and energy at Société Générale Corporate & Investment Bank says the pool of top project finance advisory banks remains largely unchanged, as it takes time to build such a franchise. But the process of syndicating large loans (of about $1bn or more) for working capital or individual projects has changed significantly.
