Presentation (The EAFRD Guarantee Fund in Occitanie region, France FOSTER)
The EAFRD Guarantee Fund in Occitanie region, France FOSTER
The EAFRD Guarantee Fund in Occitanie region, France FOSTER
Nathalie Dauder, Directorate of Agriculture, Agri-food and Forestry, Occitanie region, France
The ‘FOSTER TPE-PME-AGRI’ (‘Fonds Occitanie de Soutien Territorial aux Entreprises Régionales’) fund-of-funds (FOSTER) has been set up in the Occitanie/Pyrénées-Méditerranée region (the Region) of France. It is the largest fund of funds in France, with contributions of EUR 156.1 million from the Region, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), and the European Investment Fund (EIF).
The objective of this report is to give an overview of the state and progress of energy efficiency developments in France, and a preliminary assessment of investment needs and potential use of ESIF financial instruments to cover them.
The FOSTER TPE-PME fund of funds was set up by the Occitanie region of France with ERDF and EAFRD resources. Through four different financial instruments it provides a range of finance adapted to meet the needs of SMEs in different sectors of the region’s economy, through loan, guarantee and equity products.
This fi-compass Showcase 2019 submission includes four video stories about FOSTER. The Occitanie Region together with the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) created and financed the financial instrument FOSTER TPE-PME under the current ESIF programming period 2014-2020, for a financial size of EUR 153 000 000. This is an initiative to support SMEs financing needs in most sectors of the economy, which is co-financed by the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) through loans, guarantees and equity and the agricultural, agri-business and forestry sectors’ financing needs, which is co-financed by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) through guarantees.
The ‘La Financière Région Réunion’ (FRR) fund of funds has been set up in the La Réunion region of France with resources from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) with a mandate to implement and manage two financial instruments to support small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), including micro-enterprises. The region has established under separate financial intermediaries a loan fund of EUR 62 million (including private co-financing) and an equity fund with EUR 10 million to co-invest alongside private investors.
This document is part of a series of 24 country reports and presents an assessment of the financing gaps for the agriculture and agri-food sectors in France. The study analyses the current supply and demand for financing in the two sectors, and quantifies the unmet credit demand.
Five sectors that have the potential for greater use of financial instruments in the future are the subject of the new fi-compass sectoral stocktaking studies. As well as a full report and Executive Summary, five case studies and separate sectoral fiches have been produced to provide targeted information for managing authorities seeking to use financial instruments to support investment in the following key sectors: