Principal Investment Officer: Project Finance

Job Description

The Principal Investment Officer is responsible for formulating and executing the strategic objectives of the business in collaboration with the Transacting Head, whilst generating deal flow and building a robust pipeline of prospective projects for development financing bankability.

Key Responsibilities

Transaction Assessments

• Evaluate the feasibility of investment opportunities with a view to ensure they are commercially viable and align with the DBSA’s strategic objectives and mandate.
• Enhance the bankability of transactions by identifying and mitigating key risks, collaborating closely with Credit Risk, Country Risk Specialists, and other Divisions/Units in the Bank.
• Provide financial structuring expertise on transactions for the benefit of clients and the organisation through innovative approaches and strategic thinking.

Transaction Execution and Credit Approval

• Collaborate with the team to structure and negotiate detailed term sheets with Treasury, Legal, and Loan Administration teams, ensuring transaction approval.
• Secure internal approvals and lead or participate actively in closing transactions through successful negotiations.
• Manage the credit approval process from early review to final decision by the relevant committees.
• Review proposals submitted to approval committees to ensure they are well-structured and documented for informed decision-making.
• Resolve potential constraints in the lending value chain in collaboration with the Head of Transactions.
• Implement risk management procedures across financing functions, ensuring investment risks are appropriately structured and mitigated during operations.
• Capture and apply learning opportunities post-transaction to drive continuous improvement and successful deal delivery.
• Contribute to and lead input into certain strategic initiatives that are driven for the benefit of the organisation

Lead Transaction Execution Functions

• Lead transaction teams in conducting assessments, executing deals, and driving the credit approval process.
• Coach and mentor Senior Investment Officers and Investment Officers, guiding them toward achieving transaction bankability and to enhance their skills and performance.

Relationship Management and Stakeholder Relations

• Build and maintain strong relationships with clients, global and regional private businesses, banking and multilateral partners and government officials to further develop specific investment opportunities.
• Manage relationships at various levels with the relevant project stakeholders, partners, and lead promoters, following the project’s development objectives.
• Maintain communication with clients and manage client relations; ensure that they submit all the Bank’s requirements to facilitate the appraisal process.
• Provide feedback on the status of their application timeously and advise them on the bank’s processes and procedures.
• Ensure continuous communication with clients/ projects that the DBSA has funded to adequately support the division’s monitoring function.
• Identify clients’ pain points to coordinate DBSA’s solution offerings to address them.
• Network and maintain relationships with key internal and external stakeholders.
• Undertake other tasks as assigned by the line manager, from time to time.

Key Measurements of Outputs

• The list is not exhaustive

• Revenue performance in terms of Interest Income and Fees generated.

• Delivery on the agreed Operations Mandate; these include:

• Growth rate in assets of the loan book:

  • Annual disbursements, commitments and approvals
  • Quality of loan book
  • % of loan book in priority geographies and sectors
  • Number of new clients
  • Number of potential deals/ pipelines

• Management of client relationships and key stakeholders.

Expertise & Technical Competencies

Minimum Requirements

• A postgraduate qualification or equivalent in Business (such as an MBA) or Finance (CA or CFA), or Engineering, or Economics.
• A minimum of 10 years of relevant work experience in appraising, negotiating, due diligence and closing project finance, corporate finance, or structured finance transactions in a financial institution.
• Experience in leading, initiating and developing new business strategies and opportunities to create a pipeline of development impact projects, ensuring deal flow and bankability.
• Experience in securing infrastructure investment deals in relevant sectors/geographies in SA and Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Comprehensive knowledge of the complex financial and regulatory environments.
• Proven experience in working with senior stakeholders in highly political environments in South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Successful track record in leading project teams with high-level stakeholders and qualified professionals.
• Strong credit, financial, analytical, and financial modelling skills.
• Strong networks and relations with clients, global and regional private investors and banks to identify and source viable projects / investments.
• In-depth knowledge and understanding of the infrastructure market and financial markets.
• Demonstrable experience in identifying client challenges and playing an active part in structuring innovative solutions.

TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES

Project Management

• Defines, plans, and manages large and/or strategic projects, including those with a high degree of technical complexity, with impacts across the organisation and/or with national implications.
• Assembles and leads diverse and multi-disciplinary teams, ensuring maximum effective resource utilisation.
• Successfully manages substantial project budgets and reports directly to senior managers on the progress and results of projects.
• Identifies complex issues that need escalation and proposes appropriate corrective actions.

Deal Structuring

• Uses credit enhancement techniques to structure deals and optimise pricing in terms of Basel principles.
• Has an in-depth and practical understanding of how to optimise the Capital Structure, collateral package, and debt repayment profile.
• Interrogates financial models, including those with a high degree of complexity, to develop an optimal structure.
• Identifies complex structural issues that need escalation and proposes appropriate bankable structures.
• Demonstrates knowledge of advanced structuring, including the use of derivatives, syndicated loans, synthetic loans, securitisations, Inflation-linked debt, credit default swaps and subordinated debt.
• Prepares specialised or tailored reports relating to new innovative instruments, gathers information from a variety of sources, analyses and includes in a report to new product approval committees.
• Compiles comprehensive specialist reports as required for inclusion into credit committee submissions.

Solution Focus

• Identifies broad, highly complex problems based on a multitude of factors, many of which are complex and sweeping in nature, difficult to define and often contradictory.
• Creates procedures to articulate the nature of problems and to identify and weigh alternate solutions.
• Evaluates the effectiveness of solutions using approaches tailored to the situation.

Financial Analysis

• Serves as subject matter expert.
• Evaluates and determines fiscal, operational, and service impacts; analyses and evaluates legislation; and implements and evaluates statistical models in their subject areas.
• Demonstrates in-depth technical and administrative knowledge of the rules and regulations in the subject area and to defend analyses, testimony, and recommendations relating to a variety of issues before management and commissions.

Risk Management

• Drives integration and standardisation of risk management processes across the organisation.
• Advises on the application of the organisation’s risk management policies, industry best practices and constructs organisation guidelines.
• Analyses tr