Ex-Im Bank: Helps Wisconsin and Missouri businesses win export sale for Turkish hydro-electric dam project

Contact: Marianna Ohe (202-565-3206)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Three Midwestern businesses have exported $9.4 million of concrete transportation and placement equipment to Turkey for a hydro-electric dam project, and created U.S. jobs in the process, backed by insurance from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank).

Maxon Industries Inc., Milwaukee, Wisc. and Marco Solutions (Continental Manufacturing Group), St. Louis Mo., both small businesses, and Putzmeister America, Inc., Sturtevant, Wisc., sold the equipment to The Dogus Group, a civil works contractor in Istanbul. Dogus will use the equipment for the Booyabat Hydro-Electric Dam Project on the Kizilirmak River in Turkey.

“This transaction and several other export sales over the past two years have allowed us to increase our workforce by seven people to a total of 29 employees,” said Bill Maxon, president and CEO of Maxon Industries and son of its founder. “Without the support of PNC Bank and Ex-Im Bank, the transaction would have been tough to complete. They enabled us to win out over foreign competitors that had the support of their governments’ export credit agencies.”

Maxon Industries initiated the sale and introduced the export opportunity to Marco Solutions. Ex-Im Bank’s Midwest Regional Office provided The Dogus Group with indicative financing quotes and the company selected that of PNC Bank, Pittsburgh, Pa., which became the insured lender. All of the equipment has been shipped to the site and is up and operating.

“This transaction reflects two key Ex-Im Bank priorities,” said Ex-Im Bank Chairman and President Fred P. Hochberg. “Turkey is one of nine countries Ex-Im Bank is targeting because of the extraordinary opportunities it offers U.S. exporters. We also are widening our reach to help even more U.S. small businesses grow and add jobs by exporting.”

“We’d like to do more medium-term business in the Turkish market,” said Juan Francisco Correa, PNC Bank Vice President of Structured Trade Finance. PNC Bank is the largest user of Ex-Im Bank medium-term products in terms of transaction volume. In the first 11 months of fiscal 2010 (through August 2010), Ex-Im Bank authorized $21.5 billion in loans, guarantees and insurance to support U.S. exports to markets around the world, in the process supporting 200,000 American jobs.

Ex-Im Bank, an independent, self-sustaining federal-government agency, helps create and maintain U.S. jobs by filling gaps in export financing and strengthening U.S. export competitiveness. The Bank is the official export credit agency of the United States. It provides a variety of financing products, including working capital loan guarantees to help small and medium-sized U.S. businesses, export-credit insurance to protect against nonpayment by foreign buyers, and loan guarantees and direct loans to assist foreign buyers of U.S. goods and services.

For more information, including how to access the Bank’s export financing, see Ex-Im Bank’s Web site at http://www.exim.gov, or call (312) 353-8081 to reach Ex-Im Bank’s Midwest Regional Office.