How EFSI benefits SMEs in Europe - BGK Bank case study: Presto Stal (Poland), Steel wholesale company

Presto Stal operates a seven-person steel wholesale company in Klawkowo, northern Poland, supplying primarily individual clients and local companies.

Presto Stal’s strategy is strongly based on local clients, and its main objective is to provide products that meet their requirements as closely as possible. They invest a lot of effort and time in maintaining the best possible relations with clients, conducting flexible pricing policies, enabling clients to negotiate prices, and focusing on satisfying clients’ individual – often very specific – needs. Despite being a young team, its experience in the steel products sector is already more than a decade long, thus ensuring the professional technical expertise that is indispensable in tailoring their offers.

Recently, Presto Stal has been planning to develop new services, such as blacksmith services, and welding and painting metal items, so that the client can be served in an even more comprehensive fashion. In order to carry out plans to develop the company, considerable funds needed to be invested in the purchase of land for the new head office and a welding-painting-smithery hall.

As Rafał Piechowski, owner of Presto Stal, points out, “without a loan backed by EIF through Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK), we would not have been able to carry out our investment plans at the best time for the company, which could have had an adverse impact on our development and the planned expansion of our activities.”

The loan, made possible thanks to the Investment Plan for Europe, the EU initiative aiming at generating new investments by facilitating access to finance for European small and medium-sized enterprises, ensured the company’s financial stability throughout this important investment project. The effects are immediately noticeable in the company: They have since employed additional staff and expect the number of employees to reach ten next year. The hardening of the land purchased for the project has already started, and the plans for 2017 include the construction of a new hall and relocation of the company, ultimately consolidating Presto Stal’s competitive position in the local market.

Company: Presto Stal (Poland)

Type of business:  Steel wholesale company

EIF financing:  COSME LGF, EFSI

For further information abiout EIF intermediaries in Poland please refer to: http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/where/pl