State starts investment fund
Athens is setting up a new financing entity that will co-fund projects of special purposes
Greece is establishing its own National Investment Fund and will hand it a launch gift of 300 million euros.
Its role will be to co-invest, together with other private funds and financial institutions, in dynamic and outward-looking sectors, such as the green transition, and the circular and the blue economy, where there is an investment gap, without competing with existing funds, in order to strengthen the development character of the Superfund and contribute to Greece’s growth. The European Investment Bank has already expressed an interest.
This fund, with BlackRock hired as a consultant, will operate within the wider framework of the Superfund. The final bill is expected to come to Parliament by July and the changes it will bring will start from the beginning of 2025.
The €300 million with which the new National Investment Fund will initially be financed comes from the state’s contribution to the Superfund as part of the return of the latter’s holdings in EYDAP and EYATH to the state. As the entire portfolio of the Superfund remains a quasi-guarantee for the loans Greece has received from the European Union, the decision of the prime minister had already announced in 2019 for the water supply companies to leave the Superfund was accompanied by negotiations with the institutions, which ended up – after the valuation of these holdings by independent consulting material – at the amount of €600 million. This amount, which will be financed from the state budget, will be contributed to the Superfund, as €300 million will go to service the country’s external debt and the remaining €300 million will constitute the initial capital of the new National Investment Fund. These details were revealed on Tuesday by Minister of National Economy and Finance Kostis Hatzidakis, explaining that this fund will operate like the corresponding funds of other European countries.
The fund will only be allowed to participate in investments if other investors also enter, and will be able to invest in both shares and hybrid securities, such as convertible bonds.
