CHO COMPANY LTD. (FMO-59669)

Countries
  • Tunisia
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Financial Institutions
  • Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Proposed
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
B
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Borrower
CHO Company
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Agriculture and Forestry
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Loan
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 14.36 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Currency conversion note:
Bank reported EUR 12.00 MLN
Converted using 2021-04-15 exchange rate.
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ FMO website

Updated in EWS Apr 20, 2021

Disclosed by Bank Apr 15, 2021

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Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

According to bank provided information, FMO intends to participate for up to EUR 12 million in a long-term facility led by IFC. The proposed Project will finance permanent working capital and capital expenditures to support the Company's strategy to increase its sales of bottled olive oil.

CHO's overall goals through this Project are its contribution to preserving linkages with farmers, maintaining jobs, and domestic value addition. The Project's contribution to market resilience will be through building capacity along the supply chain, demonstrating improved business practices to other sector players, and enabling positive spillovers across the sector by maintaining operations during a tumultuous economic period. The investment also contributes to financial additionality through long-term tenor and currency.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.
Private Actors Description
A Private Actor is a non-governmental body or entity that is the borrower or client of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity and banks. This describes the private actors and their roles in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed or has been further researched.

Established in 1996 as an olive oil bulk trader in Sfax, Tunisia, CHO Company ("CHO" or the "Company") is currently one of the largest Tunisian olive oil producers, bottlers and exporters. CHO was created by three entrepreneurs, Mr. Abdelaziz Makhloufi, Mr. Moncef Rekik, and Mr. Mohamed Tounsi. The original founders still own most of the shares of the Company. CHO Group is one of the largest olive oil milling operation in Tunisia and has vertically integrated operations, from orchards and olive fields to mills, refineries, pomace extraction units, accredited laboratory, cosmetics and detergents production units, and state of the art packaging facilities.

Private Actor 1 Private Actor 1 Role Private Actor 1 Sector Relation Private Actor 2 Private Actor 2 Role Private Actor 2 Sector
- - - - CHO Company Undisclosed -

Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

*Contact information not provided at the time of disclosure*

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

As part of FMO's ex-ante disclosure (disclosure of transactions before contracting), you can send requests or questions for additional information to: disclosure@fmo.nl 

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF FMO

Communities who believe they will be negatively affected by a project funded by the Dutch Development Bank (FMO) may be able to file a complaint with the Independent Complaints Mechanism, which is the joint independent accountability mechanism of the Dutch Development Bank (FMO) and the German Investment Corporation (KfW). A complaint can be filed in writing, by email, post, or online. The complaint can be filed in English or any other language of the complainant. The Independent Complaints Mechanism is comprised of a three-member Independent Expert Panel and it can provide either problem-solving, compliance review or both, in either order. Additional information about this accountability mechanism, including a guide and template for filing a complaint, can be found at: https://www.fmo.nl/independent-complaints-mechanism 

How it works

How it works