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By Bloomberg

Societe Generale SA has expanded its Middle East structured finance team as France’s third-biggest bank by assets seeks to tap regional demand for funding and advisory services for industrial, transport and energy projects.

Societe Generale has added specialists in project and export finance, asset financing for aircraft, in shipping and debt capital markets at its Dubai hub, Richad Soundardjee, regional chief executive officer, said Sunday in an interview. The Paris-based lender also expects to add resources at its fixed-income hedging business for corporates and financial institutions and at its custody business, he said.

“These are all part of our global franchises where we can make a difference in this region,” Soundardjee said at the bank’s offices at the Dubai International Financial Center. “The drop in the oil price will create a need to get external funding, whether it is from the banks or from the capital markets, so we are even more relevant in this strategy.”

The oil-rich Middle East and North Africa region has $1.4 trillion worth of projects under execution, with the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council accounting for about 90 percent by value, according to a Citigroup Inc. report last year. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the two biggest Arab economies, have vowed to push ahead with projects for oil fields, railways and ports even after oil prices dropped by more than 40 percent since June.

Lending, Bonds

Societe Generale is expanding its lending and advisory business in the Middle East after the sovereign debt crisis prompted it to scale back three years ago. The lender was one of three underwriters for a $1.8 billion, seven-year loan for Dubai Aluminium last year and is among managers of a $500 million bond sale of ports operator DP World Ltd. That transaction is currently underway, people familiar with the deal said Monday.

Societe Generale, which reported a five-fold rise in first- quarter profit to 868 million euros ($970 million) this month, just completed a “significant” export credit agency-backed transaction for a transportation project in the GCC, Soundardjee said. It also has a mandate for a bond sale that may be completed before the summer, has an advisory mandate in the power industry and another in mining, he said, without giving details of any companies involved.