Development bank approves €956.5 million in capitalisation funds

Portugal’s development bank Banco de Fomento has approved the disbursement of €956.5 million in financing operations on the back of the Capitalisation and Resilience Fund.

The CRF fund was launched with funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP). Funds from the RRP represent 74% of the fund.

Of this amount around €510 million has been contracted to venture capital companies and final beneficiaries (companies) that to date have only received 5.6% of the funds according to the bank.
“Despite €72.4 million (5% of the CRF fund) having been contracted to the final applicants to date (companies), there are various operations in the final decision-making phase both regarding the Consolidate Programme and the Strategic Recapitalisation Programme” according to the bank led by Celeste Hagatong (pictured) and Ana Carvalho.
The disbursement of €75 million of investment is expected to be decided in the coming weeks with a “significant part of these operations to presented by a private investor (such as a venture capital entity) (a minimum of 30% of the investment from the private investor and a maximum of 70% funded by the CRF).
The Banco de Fomento also sates that some €56.5 million in financing have been approved from the Strategic Capitalisation Programme (it has a total €200 million) has so far been approved, corresponding to 28% of the programmes funds, of which €32 million have already been contracted (16% of the programme’s funds).
To speed up the disbursement of funds to companies from the Capitalisation and Resilience Fund, the Banco de Fomento has signed four protocols with BPI, Bankinter Caixa Geral de Depósitos and Novobanco and will also sign agreements with Santander Totta and Millennium BCP.

Photo: ESTELA SILVA/LUSA