» SOFID joins EDFI

SOFID joined EDFI’s 16th member on February 1, 2008.

SOFID – Sociedade Para o Financiamento do Desenvolvimento, Instituição Financeira de Crédito, SA is a financial institution – “Instituição Financeira de Crédito” – with own resources of EUR 12.5 million; it is a limited liability company majority owned by the Portuguese State (59.99%) with the remaining shareholders being the four major Portuguese banks: Banco Espirito Santo, Banco BPI, Caixa Geral de Depósitos, MillenniumBCP (10% each) - and ELO - Associação Portuguesa para o Desenvolvimento Económico e a Cooperação (“ELO - Portuguese Association for Economic Development and Cooperation”) (0.01%)). Its status allows SOFID to provide for all kind of financial operations except the collection of deposits and reimbursable funds. The company was set up in October 11, 2007 and it is the Portuguese EDFI (European Development Finance Institution).

SOFID role is to offer the full spectrum of financial tools to foster investment and business in developing countries and to contribute for the sustainable development of these countries specially the ones who are beneficiaries of the Portuguese Official Development Assistance (ODA). As such, its mission is to foster investment and business and to support the Portuguese companies which have investments or wish to invest in these countries, alone or in partnerships which local investors.

To achieve its goal, SOFID offers long term loans, guarantees and mezzanine finance, as well as equity participations, for investments of private companies, i.e. investments in start-ups or subsidiaries as well as in joint ventures. It also provides guidance and consultancy in all phases of the projects of its customers. In addition, it will carry out loan programmes and facilities on behalf of the Portuguese government which support, for instance, pre-investment or investment-tied measures if they are for the benefit of the developing country and in line with the Portuguese strategy and guidelines for economic, cooperation and ODA policies.

Actual EDFI members:

- AWS, Austria
- BIO, Belgium
- CDC, United Kingdom
- COFIDES, Spain
- DEG, Germany
- FINNFUND, Finland
- FMO, The Netherlands
- MFB, Hungary
- IFU, Denmark
- NORFUND, Norway
- PROPARCO, France
- SBI-BMI, Belgium
- SIFEM, Switzerland
- SIMEST, Italy,
- SWEDFUND, Sweden