EMAIL DETAILS

Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
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Begin forwarded message:

From: jnevergole@africa-bd.com
Subject: Colombia - Samsung
Date: April 25, 2012 11:09:51 PM EDT
To: "Eric Schwerin" <eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com>
Reply-To: jnevergole@africa-bd.com

Eric,

Here is the situation for Colombia, just finished call with Samsung. The department we work with that is interested is the ICT division (e-government). They said the Korea government has funding available for Colombia, may be for a couple projects. Thus, e-government project of around $40-$50 million USDs is a feasible size. Typically Korea soft loans are restricted funding, which means it is only open to Korean firms to bid on the project. However, as Samsung works with the host govt (in this case Colombia) to develop the project, get the funding, etc the bids are usually structured in a way that it's for them.

In the case of Clombia it's supposed to be unrestricted loans, which means Korean, Chinese, US, etc firms can bid. However, in reality as Korea is giving funds the govt wants the Korean firm to win and thus really only want to support a project for a government ministry where it can be shred up that it will go to a Korean firm (in the event Samsung develops it, it would go to Samsung). The Samsung ICT division is interested and if we can put this together with the Ministry in charge of e-government in Colombia we could do the deal together. I told them about the relationship there and said we could be a good partner for them there. Again, as it's a soft loan project Samsung will not go for a retainer but success fee on a project like this can be around $1.5 mln USDs. Also, as I understand there is a framework for e-government projects in Colombia so the normal 18-24 mths to complete studies, loan process, etc until payments start could be reduced as some steps are already complete.

Best,

John
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