“Your Future is Our Business”: €120 bln for the growth of Italian SMEs
Intesa Sanpaolo is launching the programme "Your Future is our Business", which makes €120 billion available to Italian companies through 2026 to support them in transformation and renewal processes tied to the energy and digital transition, while also facilitating their access to the new NRRP measures.
The planned measures, which aim to speed the recovery and resumption of investment of Italy’s economic and industrial fabric, are part of the Group's actions in support of the NRRP objectives, to which Intesa Sanpaolo has allocated a total of over €410 billion.
More specifically, the new support measures are aimed at SMEs, micro-businesses, the third sector and the agri-food and tourism sectors, covering the following areas:
- Transition 5.0 and Energy, with dedicated and subsidised financing solutions, consultancy for access to tax relief and the granting of relevant certifications and training; in addition, with reference to Renewable Energy Communities, shared energy solutions are envisaged, including in the form of collective self-consumption, with specific, subsidised financing
- Foreign development and new markets, with financial solutions and the support of specialised structures – thanks also to the Group's deep-rooted, widespread international presence – to identify the best product sectors and potential new markets, particularly Eastern Europe, India and the United Arab Emirates
- Digital Progress and Security, with protection and financial instruments, including the new Cyber Loan, to enable investments in hardware, software and training; moreover, thanks to its partners and ESG Workshops throughout Italy, Intesa Sanpaolo involves companies in qualified digital training courses.
Within this context, collaboration with SACE for the Green and Future guarantees is strengthened, thus amplifying the benefits for companies.
“Our role is to activate dedicated financial resources and instruments to accompanying investment choices and to help seize the opportunities of the NRRP and Transition 5.0. We serve more than 1.2 million customers, including SMEs and smaller companies, and we aim to stimulate a revitalised approach to growth by all of them, with new resources and shared objectives.”
Stefano Barrese, Head of Intesa Sanpaolo's Banca dei Territori Division
The programme devotes specific attention to the agribusiness (€15 bln) and tourism sectors, which present unique peculiarities and thus require specific support in the transition towards more innovative, profitable and sustainable models.
One example of this is the creation of Cresci Agri, the new line of loans with terms of up to 30 years dedicated to the development of production that can be modulated on the production cycle of the supply chain, and products are made available to hedge against raw material risks and ad-hoc solutions for energy efficiency and international growth.
Finally, Intesa Sanpaolo offers a department dedicated to the third sector, with over 600 people who support impact companies in development projects and interaction with the for-profit world.
The importance of investing in ongoing transformation processes is also underscored in the analysis by Intesa Sanpaolo's Research Department:
Investments in sustainability and technology offer significant returns, and manufacturing companies with renewable energy plants in the period 2019-2022 weathered the energy crisis better than the rest, with greater resilience of profitability at high levels.
From 2019 to 2022, companies with 4.0 investments recorded twice as much growth in turnover as the rest (+32.5% versus +16.6%), alongside a leap forward in productivity, with added value per employee rising by +€13,000 (versus +€5,000).
According to data from the latest ISTAT permanent census, there is ample room for improvement in Italy’s economic fabric: suffice it to say that in 2021-2022 only 5.7% of Italian companies with at least three employees used renewable energy sources (RESs). This figure rises to 10.4% in industry, narrowly defined.
Support for the green transition can come from energy supply chains and energy communities, as revealed by Intesa Sanpaolo's 18th survey on business sentiment surveyed by its management personnel in November-December 2023. Among medium-sized and large companies, there is a growing propensity to rely on suppliers that reduce their environmental impact. At the same time, there is rising interest among customers in energy communities that can business investments in RESs.
There is also room for improvement in the areas of innovation and technology. In industry, narrowly defined, almost one of two companies with at least three employees carried out innovation activities in the period 2021-2022, with peaks of 92.1% among companies with at least 250 employees. This percentage drops to 34.4% among companies with 3-9 employees. In terms of technology adoption, an average of 39.1% of industrial companies used business management software in the two-year period 2021-2022, with peaks of 90.8% among the largest companies. There seem to be margins for development, especially among smaller companies, where the figure does not reach 30%.
In this context, it will be crucial to resolve the imbalance between labour supply and demand: overall, almost 2.5 million hard-to-find positions were estimated in 2023 (+18.4% vs. 2022), 45.1% of the total.
Here are the slides (Italian only) of the presentation by Gregorio De Felice, Intesa Sanpaolo's Chief Economist.
Last updated 29 March 2024 at 09:41:14
