Louis-Dreyfus told Swiss economic magazine Bilanz at the end of 2020 that she planned to use the proceeds from the sale of a 45% stake in LDC, the Abu Dhabi investment company ADQ, to settle a loan. $ 1 billion from Credit Suisse, contracted in early 2019 to buy out minority family shareholders.
The overall value of the deal with ADQ – which became the largest outside investor in the 170-year-old commodities dealer controlled by Louis-Dreyfus through the Akira trust – was not disclosed. LDC later announced that it had authorized the repayment of a separate loan of $ 1.051 billion that it had given to its parent company.
Akira’s 2020 report, filed last week, shows that the trust owed Credit Suisse $ 718.4 million in the original loan at the end of 2020, of which an additional $ 50 million was repaid in May 2021.
On September 9, 2021, Akira and the family shareholding entity Ruethiers entered into a new agreement with Crdit Suisse to replace the previous one, drawing $ 240.7 million the following day, when the purchase of the stake closes. ADQ was announced, according to the report.
Also on September 10, Akira received a dividend of $ 405.3 million from LDC’s stake as well as a repayment of $ 47 million of Ruethiers’ share premium, according to the report.
The money Akira received at the time of the ADQ transaction, along with the repayment of the $ 1.051 billion separate loan, suggests that ADQ has invested at least $ 1.5 billion in its stake.
LDC responded by email that the financial terms of Operation ADQ remained confidential and that its value could not be deduced from Akira’s statement.
Akira does not answer questions from the media and does not release any public information in its documents, LDC added.
The ADQ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Financial pressure on LDC has also been eased by improved income from rising commodity prices and high demand for staple crops during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Reporting by Gus Trompiz; editing by Kirsten Donovan and Barbara Lewis)