Duarte Pedreira has joined Caspian Sea Capital as a director, structured finance advisory, in the London Office. He joins from Standard Bank.

He will be focusing on trade, commodity and working capital finance advisory, which will involve structuring, packaging and sourcing transactional funding for clients. “My focus will primarily be in Azerbaijan and Georgia in the CIS, and Angola and Mozambique in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Pedreira tells GTR.

He adds: “Given the increased capital burdens and constraints affecting banks at present, by strengthening security packages and linking their maturity profiles to the actual underlying businesses, we are not only aiming to unlock cheaper funding, but also to unlock access to funding where it was not available before.”

Before joining Caspian, Pedreira was charged with creating and running a trade finance department for Standard Bank in Angola and working across African trade finance.

“[This] made me realise the immense market potential for developing an advisory services offer that is focused on assisting mid-market corporates and local financial institutions in niche emerging markets, accessing trade, commodity and working capital finance,” Pedreira explains.

Caspian is targeting companies in emerging markets like Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. These can often develop good business models but require help in translating them into suitable financing structures that banks and alternative lenders can understand, underwrite and fund, he adds.

Pedreira has also worked with Portuguese banking group Banif in London, where he was involved in trade finance, syndications, and forfaiting, covering predominantly the CIS region.