Intesa Sanpaolo and Confindustria increase the ceiling for small and medium-sized enterprises, bringing it to 100 billion euros from 90 in the last 2016-2019 agreement. The renewed partnership between the Bank and Confindustria Piccola Industria represents, like all previous agreements, a stimulus for businesses. The announcement was made during the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the first framework agreement which took place in Matera in the Casa Cava congress hall, which was attended, among others, by Vincenzo Boccia, President of Confindustria, Carlo Robiglio, President of Confindustria Piccola Industria, Alberto Baban, Past President of Confindustria Piccola Industria and Stefano Barrese, Head of the Banca dei Territori Division of Intesa Sanpaolo.
The latest agreement between Intesa Sanpaolo and Confindustria was signed in 2016 and is still in force: it provides for a ceiling of 90 billion euros over three years, which, as mentioned, was raised to 100, and is dedicated to the competitiveness and transformation of companies to seize the opportunities offered by the "Fourth Industrial Revolution". The Group and the Association have announced that in the future they will further focus on topics such as sustainability, the circular economy, capitalisation, the diversification of financial sources and the internationalization of companies. The collaboration between Intesa Sanpaolo and Confindustria was born in the midst of an emergency in 2009, when the crisis was decimating our entrepreneurial system. In that very delicate moment, a series of timely measures were agreed to give oxygen to the companies, starting with the postponement of mortgage and leasing installments, and with the activation of a series of interventions on working capital and capitalisation.
The solutions introduced by the 2009 Agreement allowed Intesa Sanpaolo to intervene in support of the companies' liquidity and paved the way for subsequent agreements, in the so-called moratorium between Abi, Mise, Confindustria and the other business organizations, later becoming the common heritage of the entire Village. Intesa Sanpaolo has contributed to the moratorium, from 2009 to date, with a total of over 96.000 transactions. With the subsequent agreements, the sphere of action of the interventions has widened: from dimensional strengthening to internationalisation, from innovation to finance for growth, from corporate culture to economic, social and environmental sustainability. Collaboration, in fact, has transformed over time, making the agreements signed become actual wide-ranging industrial policy plans. In 10 years, these numerous initiatives have allowed the disbursement of over 210 billion which the Bank has earmarked for businesses.
In particular, among the most important elements, access to credit, finance for growth, innovation and new entrepreneurship. Based on these guidelines, an action plan was developed, guided by the respective top management, which led to the identification of a series of intangible qualitative factors. In this way it was possible to measure the competitive positioning of the companies and the real development prospects, radically changing the traditional bank-company relationship, based exclusively on the evaluation of historical balance sheet data. Thanks to this important work, Intesa Sanpaolo has adopted a qualitative questionnaire in its credit assessment to value intangible elements that cannot be quantified otherwise: belonging to a supply chain, the presence of quality and environmental certifications, ownership of trademarks and patents, investments in research and innovation, care for human capital, compliance with the law, the presence of insurance coverage and company development plans, the managerial structure and attention to generational handover, factors that are an expression of the company's ability to grow and orienting its action towards investments that lead to prospective solidity and sustainability.
These aspects have become a full part of the new corporate rating model validated in April 2017 by the ECB. From its inception to today, for over 33 business customers it has been possible to exploit at least one of the qualitative elements in determining the rating. The awareness that business growth passes through digitization processes, supply chain relationships and sustainable investments has outlined initiatives aimed at accompanying Enterprise 4.0 investments, starting above all from a process of cultural diffusion on the circular economy, on economic, social and environmental sustainability, including the circular economy and resilience, in order to make companies capable of adapting to change and seizing all its opportunities. The loans disbursed for Industry 4.0, to around 10.000 companies, amounted to 3,3 billion. Over 660 Supply Chain contracts have been signed with over 93 employees, a potential of over 15.600 suppliers and a turnover of over 70 billion euros. More recently, attention has turned to the development of human capital and the processes of growth in size and capitalisation.
An important accompaniment to the Elite Program of Borsa Italiana is underway, which in just one year has seen the participation of over 100 companies of excellence; support for innovative startups is also operational through the adoption of an evaluation model specifically dedicated to understanding the industrial and not just the financial aspects of entrepreneurial projects. The 10 years of collaboration have profoundly changed the bank-company relationship. Starting from distant and opposing points of view during the phases of credit and liquidity difficulties associated with the great economic crisis, we have come to work in tandem for a common goal: to have stronger companies for a stronger, more sustainable and more competitive country. There are now the conditions to allocate further efforts to support investments and the capitalization of companies, in particular those that pay attention to sustainability - also with a view to circular economy and resilience - and that look to international markets. To accompany this process, the Bank will raise the limit of 100 to 90 billion, pending the signing of the next collaboration agreement with Piccola Industria Confindustria.
“The partnership with Intesa Sanpaolo was born to respond to the credit and liquidity emergency that affected our production fabric during the crisis. Over time, this precious collaboration has been able to transform itself to capture all the aspects necessary for the development of the industrial system - underlines Vincenzo Boccia, President of Confindustria - Today, in fact, traditional finance is not enough and we need a wider range of instruments capable of meet the needs of the real economy. In the last 10 years Confindustria has devoted priority attention, also thanks to this partnership, to the development of finance as a strategic function for companies and part of the innovation process. Much has been done to extend and diversify corporate funding sources, increase their capital base and bring them closer to the markets. Through the Elite Program we have worked together to increase the financial and organizational culture of SMEs. Today this process must be completed. In particular, the guarantee fund must be further strengthened by strengthening the measures introduced by the Growth Decree to support more structured SMEs and the PIRs must be unblocked by reactivating a flow of resources to the benefit of the production system".
"The growth of SMEs is a mantra for us, a concept that is enriched every day with new meanings - says Carlo Robiglio, President of Piccola Industria of Confindustria - The long journey made with Intesa Sanpaolo has allowed us to increasingly expand the sphere of joint action to be able to accompany and support our companies in their daily challenges, to equip them with an increasingly complex and specialized toolbox. In this framework, the latest Addendum to the 2016-2019 Agreement was developed, which has shined a light on corporate culture understood at 360 degrees. Our collaboration continues to expand and enrich itself, we are already working on the new Agreement which will be signed in the coming months. SMEs must know how to throw their hearts and minds over the obstacle and be ready to adapt, to change, to respond to emergencies trying to transform them into opportunities. We need to encourage aggregations, supply chains to increase the specific weight of small businesses and their ability to operate on the foreign market, help them open up governance and seize the growth opportunities offered by innovative finance. We need to help the 60% of Italian companies in transition to make the leap in size and competitiveness. We need to transform this chosen department into an army with the help of a formidable ally like Intesa Sanpaolo”.
“Ten years after the first agreement, the collaboration with Confindustria Piccola Industria continues and gets stronger. The numbers prove it too. In the first half of this year, the Group disbursed approximately 11 billion euro to the business world - underlines Stefano Barrese, Head of the Banca dei Territori Division of Intesa Sanpaolo - confirming its role as a driving force in the development of Italian business, with the aim of increasing the value of Made in Italy in the world. At the heart of our action is a new way of doing banking, through the enhancement of qualitative factors in the evaluation of companies, the result of work carried out jointly with Confindustria. The shared objective is to promote the development of the company in a context of economic, social and environmental sustainability, promoting processes of qualitative and dimensional growth of companies, to make them capable of adapting to change and knowing how to govern it”.
