Here comes the first fund that invests in minibonds on the Italian market, a new source of financing for small and medium-sized enterprises. The initiative stems from the collaboration between Confindustria, Finanziaria Internazionale and Banca Monte dei Paschi. Companies will be able to obtain liquidity, while freeing themselves from financial constraints, while those who invest will be able to closely monitor the solidity of the companies' activities.
The Minibond Fund is a closed-end fund reserved for qualified investors and will invest in debt instruments, mainly minibonds issued by Italian SMEs. It will have a maximum duration of seven years, initially ranging in size from 100 to 150 million euros. The minibonds will be senior unsecured securities with a maximum maturity of 5 years and amortized repayment of the principal and fixed-rate coupons. The yield of the securities will be calculated at the time of issue according to the market yields of issues with creditworthiness. The destination of the funds deriving from the issue is reserved for new investments and the financing of working capital.
“It is an important project – commented the managing director of Mps, Fabrizio Viola –, strategic for us, which confirms the Bank's objective of returning to being close to families and businesses. In particular, it will bring SMEs closer to qualified savings, in search of returns. The Bank will make a selection of companies that have the correct requirements to issue this type of bond. For us it has a very important value, because it is the first concrete realization of the goal we have set ourselves to solve the problem of loans exceeding direct deposits, typical of the Italian banking sector”.
