📋 Tender Overview
Reference: 20240804
Release date: 1 July 2025
Promoter – Financial Intermediary
CAIXABANK SA
Location
Spain
Description
The transaction consists of a de-linked risk sharing guarantee between CaixaBank and the EIB, aimed at creating additional lending capacity to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-caps in Spain. The guarantee facility will be used to cover up to 50% of the credit risk associated with a Spanish bank's corporate and midcap loan portfolio. Additionally, it will include a window targeting the agricultural sector.
Additionality and Impact
The proposed transaction consists of a delinked risk sharing guarantee between CaixaBank and the EIB, under a partial delegation approach. The guarantee aims to promote and accelerate private sector investments as well as facilitating access to finance for SMEs & Midcaps, a backbone in terms of growth and employment for the Spanish economy. The operation will help address the working capital, liquidity needs and investment constraints of SMEs & Midcaps, a segment that remains vulnerable in the current challenging economic environment. 20% of the operation will be dedicated to SMEs & Midcaps operating in the agricultural sector. Contribution to cohesion is expected to be high (63%), thanks to the weight of the agricultural sector, where allocations to these regions predominate (82%).
Risk Sharing operations allow financial intermediaries to reduce their risk weights, risk concentrations, their perception of risk and, more importantly, to create headroom in their balance sheets to provide more lending. This is crucial in a context where banks have more restrictions to increase their balance sheet.
Supporting agriculture and bioeconomy is one of the eight policy priorities of the Bank, as per the EIB Group 2024-2027 Strategic Roadmap. The operation will support among others modernisation in the agriculture sector and rural development and territorial cohesion. It also aligns with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) legislative package for the 2023-2027 programming period.
This operation will address market weaknesses and failures related to the availability of financing to SMEs & Mid-caps active in the bioeconomy value chains. For such SMEs, this project will ease the financial constraints that arise from information asymmetries caused by the lack of track record, insufficient farm net asset value to collateralize, as well as high screening costs for small investments.
The operation thus falls under the EIB's vertical Public Policy Goal (PPG) of "SME and Midcap financing" on an 80% of the portfolio and within PPG "sustainable energy and natural resources" for the 20% committed to Bioeconomy.
Objectives
The aim is to promote and accelerate private sector investments, and facilitate access to finance for SMEs and Midcaps, a backbone in terms of growth and employment for the Spanish economy. A portion of the operation will be dedicated to supp
