Further to the signature of five guarantee agreements with Bulgarian banks in July 2011 under the Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises (JEREMIE) initiative, EIF progressed with the selection of financial intermediaries under the calls for expressions of interest for the equity products and is currently negotiating a potential commitment with the following private equity fund managers:

Risk Capital Fund

Neveq Capital Partners – an established team in the Bulgarian market, with an investment experience through NEVEQ I, a previous fund of similar size and strategy, raised in 2007.

The new fund has a target size of at least EUR 30m and will focus on seed, start-ups and late stage transactions in Bulgarian technology companies. Investments into individual portfolio companies will typically be in the range of EUR 0.5m – EUR 1.5m per annum.

Growth Capital Fund

Axxess Capital – a new company to manage the JEREMIE growth fund will be set-up by Axxess, one of the largest and most experienced private equity teams consistently focusing on the South-Eastern European lower mid-market. Axxess is headquartered in Bucharest (Romania) and has an office in Sofia (Bulgaria). Since 1994 Axxess has raised and managed three multi-country private equity funds: Romanian American Enterprise Fund established in 1994, the 2005 Balkan Accession Fund and Emerging Europe Accession Fund raised in 2010.

The growth capital fund has a target size of EUR 60m and will provide growth/expansion capital to Bulgarian lower mid-market companies, across a wide range of sectors.

Mezzanine Fund

Bulgaria Mezzanine Capital – a joint venture between Growth Capital Partners AG (GCP) and Rosslyn Capital Partners (RCP). GCP was founded by principles of Mezzanine Management Central Europe (MMCE), the leading mezzanine fund manager in the CEE region created in 2000. MMCE has successfully raised and managed three multi-country mezzanine funds since 2003 focusing on CEE: AMC I in 2003, AMC II in 2007 and AMC III in 2010. RCP was established in 2002 and since then has raised and/or managed five equity funds with more than 30 direct investments, mainly in Bulgaria.

The mezzanine fund with a target size of EUR 60m will provide mezzanine financing for growth expansion, external growth and capital restructurings in the Bulgarian lower mid-market, across a wide range of sectors. The targeted investment size per transaction is EUR 2m – 5m.

The three fund managers have been retained out of the twenty nine applications received under the aforementioned calls for expression of interest. The EIF is in the process of legal negotiation with the intermediaries and will be able to confirm their selection once an agreement has been reached on all the details.

The fund managers have also commenced the process of raising private contributions as well as structuring fund vehicles.

It is expected that the first funds will start the investment process in the last quarter of 2011/first quarter of 2012.

In addition to negotiations with the three above-mentioned funds, within the framework of the JEREMIE activity in Bulgaria a further call for expression of interest directed to the early stage and start-up segment of the market has been launched. The call targets financial intermediaries interested in implementing an Entrepreneurship Acceleration and Seed Financing Instrument with total size up to EUR 20 million. The deadline for the submission of expressions of interest from fund managers for this call is 12 October 2011 and the call documentation can be found at: http://www.eif.org/

About JEREMIE Initiative

JEREMIE (Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises) is a joint initiative launched by the European Commission (Directorate General Regional Policy) and the European Investment Bank group to improve access to finance for SMEs in the EU within the Structural Funds framework for the period 2007 - 2013. JEREMIE enables the EU Member States and Regions to put money from the structural funds and also national resources into holding funds that can finance SMEs in a flexible and innovative way. The new initiative aims at developing and fostering the role of entrepreneurship within the EU in order to meet the objectives of the Lisbon agenda and help structural funds to deliver greater benefits to the market. At the level of the European Union, the EIF has currently signed 8 national and 3 regional Holding Fund agreements.

In Bulgaria, the JEREMIE Holding Fund is financed from the European Regional Development Fund and co-financed by 15% by the State Budget within the framework of the Operational Programme Development of the Competitiveness of the Bulgarian Economy 2007 – 2013. Under JEREMIE Initiative in Bulgaria EIF has already signed 5 guarantee agreements with CIBANK, ProCredit Bank, Raiffeisenbank, UniCredit Bulbank and United Bulgarian Bank, allowing them to provide up to EUR 400 million of new loans to Bulgarian small and medium enterprises.

Press contacts: David Yormesor, EIF Communications, tel +352 426 688 346, e-mail: d.yormesor@eif.org