EBRD Mulls up to 30 Mln Euro Equity Investment in European Fund for Southeast Europe

The investment will be in senior A-shares of EFSE and comprise two equal tranches of 15 million euro each, the bank said in a statement late on Friday.

The EBRD investment will support the ongoing lending activities of EFSE which provides medium to long term funding to commercial banks, non-bank microfinance institutions and other financial institutions for on-lending to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) as well as for housing and rural finance.

The EFSE (www.efse.lu) was set up in December 2005 to support MSME and housing finance in southeast Europe. The Fund has a tiered structure and is funded by public agencies, international financial institutions and private investors. Its investment portfolio totals 559 million euro and it has operations in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Macedonia, Moldova and Romania.

($ = 0.6667 euro)