21 The bank financing for Section 2 was all provided by either the European Investment Bank (EIB) or KfW. EIB is the financing institution of the European Union and its task is to 'contribute towards the integration, balanced development and economic and social cohesion of Member Countries'. It is a non-profit making bank and its pricing is generally close to cost of funds. RBC Capital Markets concluded that the EIB debt is highly competitively priced and could not have been funded more cheaply through any other bank.
22 In contrast, some of the KfW debt, especially the short dated debt, does not seem to be as competitively priced and it may have been possible to have achieved cheaper financing from the commercial bank market. RBC Capital markets recommends that future projects planning to use the KfW 'daughter' bank (KfW IPEX Bank) which prices loans on a commercial rather than policy driven basis, consider competing the loan pricing by approaching commercial banks as well. However, the additional presence of KfW as a lender may give other lenders confidence in the robustness of the project and therefore borrowers may consider the relevant premium a worthwhile cost.