Government launches €100 million family business credit line

The Portuguese Government has launched a €100 million credit line to help kickstart and develop family businesses.

The money, which has been deposited in a fund called ‘Linha Sucessão Empresarial e Incremento de Escala’ is being made available to help them gain scale and up their competitiveness.
According to the online newswire ECO, reports that large international family-owned Portuguese companies like Corticeira Amorim, Grupo José de Mello, Impresa, Hovione, Nutrinveste, Gelpeixe, Textil Manuel Gonçalves go to show that not all organisations of this type are small companies.
Family companies as a whole represent 80% of Portugal’s company network, 65% of its GDP and 50% of the country’s workforce according to data from the Association of Family Companies (Associação das Empresas Familiares.
Despite there being countless success stories of the resilience and survival of family companies, there are challenges and problems too.
For example, if experience and know-how of a particular business, solid values and group culture, not to mention a long-term perspective all play in favour of family companies; problems of succession, a weak organisational structure or less than professional skills can be fatal for a family-owned business.
The Government is making the funds available through IAPMEI (Portuguese Association for SMEs) whereby companies can have access to funds at lower interest rates than those provided by the banks.
“The goal is to increase “ company competitiveness and productivity via concentration steps and company scaleups which put them in a more competitive position in the international market”, states a Ministry of Economy source.