Strong demand from Spanish businesses brings more finance from the EU Competitiveness and Innovation Programme

The European Investment Fund (EIF) and Compañía Española de Reafianzamiento SA (CERSA) have extended their counter-guarantee agreement under the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) providing additional finance for Spanish businesses.

Following the initial CIP agreement supporting the financing of SME loans worth EUR 1.4 billion until 2011, EIF increased its support of CERSA by an additional EUR 1 billion of loans guaranteed under existing CIP agreements with CERSA between 2012 and 2014, which will help to further support entrepreneurs and create new jobs.

CERSA is the only counter-guarantee scheme operating in Spain supporting the regional guarantee institutions and due to the high demand for this product, the EIF and CERSA have decided to again increase the amounts available to Spanish businesses.

Mr Gunnar Mai, Head of SME Guarantee Facility of EIF, said “This second contract extension demonstrates the good work CERSA is doing in helping to enhance access to finance for entrepreneurs in Spain. I am confident that the over EUR 1million of loans counter-guaranteed by CERSA will help support even more business in Spain this year and next year at a crucial time for the Spanish economy”.

Background information:

The Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), which spans from 2007 to 2013, has been put in place to boost European productivity, innovation capacity and sustainable growth, whilst simultaneously addressing complementary environmental concerns.

Within the framework of the CIP, the EIF has been allocated EUR 1.1bn to be split between venture capital – with the High Growth and Innovative SME Facility (GIF) – and guarantees – with the SME Guarantee Facility (SMEG).

Under the SMEG, financial institutions are encouraged to enhance access to finance for SMEs.  The facility offers an excellent tool to allocate additional financing volumes for those SMEs that would not otherwise have access to resources and financial engineering instruments because of the increased lending risk entailed.  As such, the SMEG complements and broadens EIF’s own product offering.

The EU CIP SMEG Facility gives the EIF the opportunity to play an essential role in supporting sustainable job creation and entrepreneurship in European SMEs. 

About the EIF

EIF's central mission is to support Europe's small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) by helping them to access finance.  EIF designs and develops venture capital and guarantees instruments which specifically target this market segment. In this role, EIF fosters EU objectives in support of innovation, research and development, entrepreneurship, growth, and employment. The EIF total net commitments to private equity funds amounted to over EUR 6bn at end 2011. With investments in over 370 funds, the EIF is a leading player in European venture due to the scale and the scope of its investments, especially in high-tech and early-stage segments. The EIF guarantees loan portfolio totalled over EUR 7.6bn in close to 220 operations at end 2011, positioning it as a major European SME guarantees actor and a leading micro-finance guarantor.

About EIF

The EIF central mission is to support Europe's SMEs by helping them to access finance.  EIF designs and develops venture capital and guarantees instruments which specifically target this market segment. In this role, the EIF fosters EU objectives in support of innovation, research and development, entrepreneurship, growth, and employment. The EIF commitment in guarantees totalled over EUR 11.6bn in some 190 operations at end August 2008, positioning it as a major European SME guarantees and securitisation actor and a leading micro-finance guarantor.

EIF: David Yormesor, tel : +352 42 66 88 346 , e-mail : d.yormesor@eif.org