How EFSI benefits SMEs in Europe - Cibank case study: Karad (Bulgaria), Agriculture

Back in the 1990s, the agricultural market was short of agricultural machines. At that time, one of the owners of what would become later Karad was working for Massey Ferguson, an American-owned major manufacturer of agricultural equipment. Using his expertise and seeing the potential on the market of agricultural machinery, he created his own company in Bulgaria: Karad.

Karad is based on a team of professionals that have 25 years of experience in selling and servicing modern, highly productive and efficient agricultural machinery from the global market’s leaders. Tanyo Tanev, Manager at Karad, explains: “We basically import and distribute innovative agricultural machinery on the Bulgarian market. We have 11 employees; six of them work on the reparation of the machinery if needed and the remaining five are in charge of the administrative side of the company.”

To increase the company’s amount of imports of agricultural machinery, Karad eventually secured an EU-guaranteed loan provided by Cibank, one of the leading commercial banks in Bulgaria, and backed by EIF under the Investment Plan for Europe. This EU initiative aims at generating new investments by facilitating access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises across Europe.

Today, Tanyo and his 11 employees hope to expand the company’s imports of agricultural machinery from the global market, in order to improve the facilities of the company and to increase the company’s sales of agricultural machinery in Bulgaria.

Company: Karad (Bulgaria)

Type of business: Agriculture

EIF financing: COSME LGF, EFSI

Financial intermediary: Cibank

For further information about EIF intermediaries in Poland, please refer to: http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/where/bg