Page 1 - 02_MT_EIF_JEREMIE_LEAFLET_EN

1

JEREMIE

What is JEREMIE?

The JEREMIE initiative ( “Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises” ) offers EU Member States, through their national or regional Managing Authorities, the opportunity to use part of their Euro-pean Union (EU) Structural Funds to finance small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) 1 by means of equity, loans or guarantees, through a revolving Holding Fund

acting as an umbrella fund.

This initiative was developed by the European Commis-sion (EC) and the European Investment Fund (EIF), which is part of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group.

Who is eligible?

As an umbrella fund, JEREMIE will target financial inter-mediaries, not SMEs directly.

The JEREMIE Holding Fund can provide SME-focused financial instruments including guarantees, co-guaran-tees and counter-guarantees, equity guarantees, (micro) loans, securitisation, venture capital, Business Angel Matching Funds, and investments in ­Technology Trans-fer funds to Financial Intermediaries. These Financial Intermediaries provide SMEs (the final beneficiaries) with loans and equity participation. JEREMIE will not provide any grants to SMEs .

The Holding Fund develops an Investment Strategy prior to the signature of a JEREMIE Funding Agreement between the EIF and a national/regional government of an EU Member State. The national/regional counterpart transfers the funds allocated to JEREMIE to a JEREMIE bank account, a call for expression of interest is launched and Financial Intermediaries are selected based on a due diligence process. The decision is taken with the involvement of the Investment Board.

1   According to the definition recommended by the European Commis-sion in 2003, SMEs are micro, small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 250 employees, turnover of max. EUR 50m or a balance sheet total of max. EUR 43m.

A new way of using EU Structural Funds to promote SME access to finance via Holding Funds