October 28 (SeeNews) - Axxess Bulgaria Growth Fund, one of the Bulgaria-focused equity funds about to be launched under the Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises (JEREMIE) initiative, plans to make between seven and nine investments, an investment manager at Axxess Capital, which has been tapped to run the fund, said.
JEREMIE Bulgaria, a special purpose vehicle set up in 2010 on the basis of a framework agreement between the European Investment Fund (EIF) and the Bulgarian government for the implementation of the JEREMIE initiative, will invest in four Bulgaria-focused private equity funds specialised in different stages of the business lifecycle - seed, venture capital, expansion and mezzanine investment.
Managers for three of the funds have been selected following a public call with operations expected to begin in 2012. The selection of a manager for the fourth fund - for accelerator/seed funding, is still in progress.
Axxess Bulgaria Growth Fund will have a target size of 60 million euro ($85 million) and will focus on providing development capital to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a presentation delivered by Pavlin Petkov at an M&A forum held earlier this week in Sofia indicated.
The fund will have very little competition from other private equity players, as these focus on larger majority transactions. It will fill a market gap where SMEs are too small for regional funds active in the region and experience difficulty accessing finance, the presentation further indicated.
The fund will make equity investments ranging in size between 2.0 million and 5.0 million euro primarily in companies active in the fast-moving consumer goods, retail, healthcare, software solutions and services sectors.
The EIF is the European Investment Bank Group's specialist provider of SME risk finance across Europe.
JEREMIE is a joint initiative launched by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank Group to improve access to finance for SMEs in the EU within the Structural Funds framework for the period 2007-2013. At the level of the European Union, the EIF has currently signed eight national and three regional Holding Fund agreements.
In Bulgaria, the JEREMIE Holding Fund is financed from the European Regional Development Fund and co-financed with 15% by the state budget within the framework of the Operational Programme Development of the Competitiveness of the Bulgarian Economy 2007–2013.
($=0.7055 euro)