29 November 2019

PME African Infrastructure Opportunities plc

("PME" or the "Company" and together with its subsidiaries the "Group")

(AIM: PMEA.L)

Amendment to Loan Agreement

The Company announced on 7 May 2019 that it had entered into a secured loan agreement with Optas GmbH (the "Lender") pursuant to which the Lender agreed to make up to €400,000 available to the Company (the "Initial Loan"). The purpose of the Initial Loan was to provide the Company with general working capital funding while it was progressing the registration of an existing Group intercompany loan with the Bank of Tanzania. As at 28 November 2019, the Company had drawn down €358,000 of the Initial Loan.

PME  announces that it has now entered into an amendment agreement with the Lender, pursuant to which the Lender has agreed to increase the amount of Initial Loan from €0.4 million to €0.6 million as well as extending the date of the repayment of the increased loan facility to 28 May 2021 (the "Loan Increase").

As required by local regulation, the Group has been working with its local bank to have an existing intercompany loan between PME Properties Limited and PME TZ Property (Mauritius) Limited, both wholly owned subsidiaries of the Company, registered with the Bank of Tanzania. Whilst the Company expects this process to conclude satisfactorily, the registration process has proven time consuming due to slow progress within a number of departments within the Bank of Tanzania.

The Company has been advised that, prior to the registration of the existing Group intercompany loan being completed, the Group is not able to transfer funds from its Tanzanian subsidiary to the rest of the Group and outside of Tanzania.  The Company's sole remaining investment, a leasehold building in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, continues to trade profitably and to generate sufficient cash which would be capable of meeting the Group's working capital requirements. However, as a result of not being able to transfer cash held by the Company's Tanzanian subsidiary to the rest of the Group, the Company had unaudited cash balances of approximately US$27,000 and undrawn additional funds available under the Initial Loan of €42,000 as at 28 November 2019. The Group had approximately US$437,000 of cash held by its Tanzanian subsidiary as at 28 November 2019, which is expected to become available to the Company once the registration process with the Bank of Tanzania is completed.

The Company has entered into the Loan Increase with the Lender in order to mitigate the potential risk of insufficient working capital being available to the Company in the event that the registration process with the Bank of Tanzania is further delayed and thereby affecting  the Group's ability to transfer funds held in its Tanzanian subsidiary to the Company.  

The principal changes to the Initial Loan effected by the Loan Increase are the increase in the amount of the loan facility from €0.4 million to €0.6 million and the extension of the repayment date for the increased loan facility to 28 May 2021. All other terms of the Initial Loan remain unchanged. There are no arrangement fees payable by the Group to the Lender in connection with the Loan Increase. The Company currently expects that it will typically draw down the additional funds made available pursuant to the Loan Increase at a rate of approximately €25,000 to €55,000 per calendar month.

Related Party Transaction

Paul Macdonald, a director of the Company, is interested in 50% of the Lender's issued share capital. Under the AIM Rules for Companies (the "AIM Rules"), the Lender is, therefore, deemed to be a related party of the Company and the Loan Increase is a related party transaction pursuant to Rule 13 of the AIM Rules. The independent director of PME, Lawrence Kearns, considers, having consulted with the Company's nominated adviser, that the terms of the Loan Increase are fair and reasonable insofar as the shareholders of PME are concerned.

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The information communicated within this announcement was deemed to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 prior to the release of this announcement. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.