Nearly 3 billion euros in “recovery” financing granted to companies – Economy

Participatory recovery loans (PPR), with a duration of eight years and which must generally begin to be repaid by companies after four years, have been launched to allow companies weakened by the health crisis to invest and to hire. They are 90% guaranteed by the State.

In addition, a “Recovery Bonds” fund was set up in 2021 to allow investors to acquire bonds from large SMEs and ETIs, with a duration equal to eight years, in order to support them financially. These securities are fully redeemable before the end of 2023. PPRs have not had the same success as stimulus bonds.

800 companies supported

According to the ministry, “at the end of January 2023, 1.74 billion euros in recovery participatory loans (PPR) and 1.21 billion euros in recovery bonds have already been granted”. However, an envelope of 11 billion euros for the PPRs had initially been planned. So far it has been largely underutilized. Initially supposed to stop on June 30, 2022, the distribution of PPRs has also been extended until the end of 2023.

Concerning stimulus bonds, investors – almost exclusively insurers – will extend by one billion euros the envelope of 1.7 billion euros initially planned to finance this device, according to the press release from Bercy. “All of the 1.7 billion brought in by investors should be used by the end of the first quarter,” said Franck Le Vallois, managing director of France Assureurs, to AFP, according to whom this extension must thus make it possible to “finance projects until the end of the system”, set at December 31, 2023.

In total, the PPRs and recovery bonds made it possible to support 800 companies, i.e. 573 small and medium-sized companies (from 10 to 249 employees) and 227 medium-sized companies (250 to 5,000 employees). Among them, above all companies in the manufacturing industry, trade and scientific and technical activities. The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, quoted in the press release, estimated this Thursday that “Relance participatory bonds and loans have demonstrated their usefulness in strengthening the balance sheet of SMEs and ETIs in this period of pressure on prices and supplies”.