EXIM Absorbed $11 Million in Fees Its Co-Financing Partners Kept
Summary
An inspector general audit of the Export-Import Bank's direct loan program finds that on a $907.5 million co-financed loan for two Angolan solar plants, EXIM alone absorbed a borrower-requested $35.2 million cut to the fee that prices default risk -- despite financing only 68.9% of the deal. Split proportionally, $10,969,350 of that cut belonged to the two foreign export credit agencies that co-financed the loan, not to EXIM. EXIM's management told the OIG the deal was still a net gain for the bank; when OIG asked for the calculation behind that claim, EXIM did not produce it.
What the loan financed, and how it got its spotlight
The deal was real infrastructure: two photovoltaic plants generating more than 500 megawatts⧉, first floated at the 2022 G7 Summit, financed for a sovereign borrower -- Angola's Ministry of Energy and Water -- and classified under 's congressionally mandated China and Transformational Exports Program, the mechanism meant to help U.S. exporters compete against Chinese state financing. 's own announcement put the jobs supported at 1,600. Months later, the White House named the same $900 million Sun Africa financing⧉ in a fact sheet on the U.S.-Angola partnership -- and the audit notes the transaction had already won 's 2023 Deal of the Year award before it closed.
View data as table
| EXIM's fee -- as authorized | 139,156,022 | EXIM's share of the exposure fee when the Board approved the loan, June 1, 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| EXIM's fee -- after the cut | 103,923,345 | EXIM's fee after it alone absorbed the borrower's $35.2 million rate-reduction request |
| Co-financing ECAs' fee -- as authorized | 62,992,353 | The two foreign export credit agencies' combined exposure fee, unchanged by the rate cut |
| Co-financing ECAs' fee -- after the cut | 62,992,353 | Same figure -- OIG found the co-financing partners' fee income did not move at all |
A fee built to price risk, priced away under pressure
Co-financing agreements exist to share both the risk and the fee income proportionally -- the 's report quotes 's own manual on the point. did not contact either co-financing partner about splitting the fee cut until nine to ten months after the loan's authorization; when one partner offered a 10% reduction of its own and asked whether that would satisfy the borrower, answered by telling both partners it would cover the entire $35.2 million decrease alone. The audit ties the outcome directly to 's charter, which requires fees "commensurate ... with risks covered" -- after the cut, keeps its full 68.9% share of the default risk while collecting a fee cut in full for it, not the proportional share the agreement was written to require. 's own explanation for why the deal moved this way: officials described "external pressure to finalize the loan" after roughly a year and a half of delay.
View data as table
| What EXIM actually absorbed, alone | 35,232,677 | The entire exposure-fee reduction EXIM agreed to eat by itself, despite financing only 68.9% of the loan |
|---|---|---|
| EXIM's proportional share (68.9% of financing) | 24,263,327 | What OIG's proportional-sharing calculation says EXIM's own share of the reduction should have been |
| The co-financing ECAs' proportional share -- the questioned cost | 10,969,350 | The portion OIG says should have come from the two foreign partners instead -- the amount EXIM effectively covered on their behalf |
EXIM's defense, and the number it didn't hand over
's written response to the draft audit didn't dispute the dollar figures -- it argued they didn't matter, because the co-financed structure "resulted in a likely net income to greater than if had only financed the U.S. content, even with absorbing all of the last-minute risk fee reduction." asked for the calculation behind that claim. did not produce it. The inspector general's own reply is direct about what the unshared cut costs beyond this one loan: the $10.97 million in fee income effectively left with its foreign partners is money it will not have on hand to remit to the U.S. Treasury under the self-financing mandate that governs the whole bank.
's Office of Board Authorized Finance did not concur with three of 's four recommendations -- covering exposure-fee policy, approval authority for fee changes, and a legal-guidance checklist -- concurring only with the fourth, a routine debt-screening fix. OIG's own tracker shows all four closed⧉ by mid-2026 anyway: the debt-screening fix on March 12, the exposure-fee-policy and approval-authority recommendations on March 31, and the legal-guidance checklist -- the one item split between the Office of Board Authorized Finance and the Office of General Counsel -- on June 9.
- alone absorbed a $35.2 million exposure-fee cut on a $907.5 million co-financed loan, despite financing only 68.9% of the deal -- calculated $10,969,350 of that reduction belonged proportionally to the two foreign export credit agencies co-financing the loan, whose own fee income never moved.
- The loan was no ordinary transaction to slip through unnoticed -- it financed 500+ megawatts of Angolan solar capacity, was classified under 's China-countering program, was named 's 2023 Deal of the Year, and was cited by name in a White House fact sheet months before the fee dispute even began.
- 's defense was a net-income claim it couldn't back up: management told the deal likely still profited more than a narrower structure would have, even after the giveaway -- but did not produce the calculation asked for to support it.
- initially rejected three of 's four fixes; 's own tracker now shows all four closed -- the debt-screening fix closed March 12, 2026, the exposure-fee-policy and approval-authority recommendations closed March 31, 2026, and the legal-guidance checklist closed June 9, 2026.
Figures are drawn from the Export-Import Bank Office of Inspector General's Audit of 's Direct Loan Program (Report -AR-25-05, issued September 23, 2025), read in full via direct PDF fetch from oversight.gov, independently corroborated on the 's own report-listing page at eximoig.oversight.gov and in the 's Fall 2025 Semiannual Report to Congress. The audit itself does not name the borrower or transaction; this entry identifies it from 's own June 1, 2023 press release, which matches the audit's Sample Loan #3 on authorization date and dollar amount exactly, and which the White House's November 30, 2023 fact sheet independently confirms by naming the same financing and 'Deal of the Year' designation the audit describes without naming the deal. A blind adversarial verifier, working from the primary documents alone with no access to this draft, independently checked every itemized fact; see verification.json.
The exposure-fee percentage drop, the proportional-share cross-check against the report's own 31.1% financing split, and the arithmetic remainder for 's 'fair' share of the cut are this outlet's own computation on the source document's own itemized figures (methods and caveats in analysis.json). None of these three comparisons appear pre-computed in the source document itself, though the questioned-cost figure and financing percentages they're built from are both the 's own numbers.
Sources(5) ▾
- Export-Import Bank of the United States, Office of Inspector General, Audit of EXIM's Direct Loan Program (OIG-AR-25-05) (2025-09-23) — The 's own performance audit is the sole source for the audit's sample scope, the $10,969,350 questioned-costs finding, the loan authorization table, the co-financing exposure-fee tables, the contact timeline with the two foreign ECAs, the charter citation, all four recommendations and 's management response, and 's own written reply in Appendix C. oversight.gov · original document
- Export-Import Bank of the United States OIG (oversight.gov subdomain), Audit of EXIM's Direct Loan Program (report listing) (2025-09-23) — The issuing 's own public report index independently corroborates report number -AR-25-05, the September 23, 2025 issue date, the $10,969,350 questioned-costs figure, and adds the recommendations' closure status -- confirming the PDF is not a stray or superseded draft and giving this entry its resolution fact. eximoig.oversight.gov · original document
- Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), Export-Import Bank of the United States Approves More Than $900M for Solar Energy Project in Angola (2023-06-01) — 's own contemporaneous press release announcing the June 1, 2023 Board approval this audit later sampled -- same date, same sovereign borrower, same approximate dollar figure ($907,457,624 per the 's Table 1) as the 's Sample Loan #3, independently identifying the transaction the audit does not name. Source for the loan's purpose (two solar plants, 500+ MW), borrower identity, estimated job count, and its classification under 's China and Transformational Exports Program. exim.gov · original document
- The White House, FACT SHEET: The U.S. -- Angola Partnership (2023-11-30) — The official White House statement the audit itself cites (footnote 6) as evidence of the political prominence of the sampled loan -- names the $900 million Sun Africa solar financing, frames it within the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, and independently confirms 's 2023 'Deal of the Year' designation for the transaction. bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov · original document
- Export-Import Bank of the United States, Office of Inspector General, Semiannual Report to Congress, April 1, 2025 to September 30, 2025 (2025-12-17) — 's own statutory report to Congress, summarizing the Direct Loan Program audit within its reporting period and independently restating the $10,969,350 questioned-costs figure and the four-recommendations, one-concurrence outcome -- corroboration from the same office's separate congressional-reporting channel. eximoig.oversight.gov · original document
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The Export-Import Bank is a self-financing federal corporation: by charter, it prices its loans to cover their own risk and remits what's left to the U.S. Treasury. In June 2023 its board authorized a $907.5 million direct loan -- co-financed with two foreign export credit agencies that put up 31.1% of the money -- to Angola's Ministry of Energy and Water, for two solar power plants. A year later, when the borrower asked to cut the fee that prices default risk by $35.2 million, 's own inspector general found⧉ that absorbed the entire cut itself -- not the 68.9% share its financing stake would justify, all of it. Split the way the loan's own co-financing agreements require, $10,969,350 of that reduction belonged to the two foreign partners, who kept their fee income exactly where it started.