Infrastructure Credit Guarantee Company ,InfraCredit, is targeting about N1 trillion over the next four years to unlock long-term funding for infrastructure projects in Nigeria.
According to the Lagos-based credit-guarantee company’s chief executive, Mr Chinua Azubike, it expects to execute the target transactions from its existing pipeline.
He said the pipeline comprises contracted clients that have completed initial screening, signed mandate letters and entered due diligence, with loan approvals and financial close expected over the next four years, he said.
“We have seen moderation in interest rates and stability in the foreign-exchange environment, and so we see opportunities to actually do more in the capital market in Nigeria”, Azubike said, as per Bloomberg.
Infracredit will be betting on looser leverage rules and easing borrowing costs that has been carried out by the Securities and Exchange Commission ,SEC, and the Central Bank of Nigeria ,CBN.
SEC last year proposed rules permitting such firms to maintain leverage of as much as 10 times capital while the Monetary Policy Committee ,MPC, of the central bank cut rates by 50 basis points to 27% in September, easing for the first time in five years.
Although the CBN held the interest rate at 27% in November 2025, there are expectations that there will be further reductions as inflation continues to ease.
Bloomberg reported that InfraCredit has used its roughly N328 billion capital base to provide credit guarantees for 27 projects spanning roads, housing and renewable energy.
Last week, it provided credit enhancement for a local currency debt issuance by First Electric Power and Automation Services Limited, backing a clean energy project under a co-financing arrangement with the Climate Finance Blending Facility. The transaction marks the facility’s first mesh-grid clean energy project and its sixth deal overall.
The firm is now seeking to capitalize on President Bola Tinubu’s push to expand public works, as Nigeria faces an infrastructure funding gap estimated at more than $3 trillion over the next three decades.
“The guarantees we issue are designed to derisk projects” and enable “infrastructure companies to issue long-term debt that pension funds and insurance companies can lend to”, Mr Azubike said.
The InfraCredit CEO said the company plans to accelerate credit mobilization by tapping its over-the-counter listing and taking advantage of the new regulations that allow credit-guarantee firms to assume more risk to back additional lending.
“Our leverage now is roughly close to one time, so there is still room to stretch the company’s balance sheet by issuing more guarantees against its capital”, Mr Azubike said.
Launched in 2017 and backed at inception by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority ,NSIA, and the UK’s Private Infrastructure Development Group, InfraCredit now counts domestic institutional investors, mainly pension funds, among its largest shareholders, which hold about 40% of the company.
