Agreement signed at “The Waterstone”, the banking group’s exhibition space inside Expo Milano 2015

 

 

PRESS RELEASE

 

INTESA SANPAOLO AND THE EUROPEAN INVESTMENT BANK SIGN AN AGREEMENT FOR EUR 150 MILLION

FOR THE AGRICULTURAL AND AGRO-FOOD INDUSTRY

 

• The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Intesa Sanpaolo Bank are financing projects for SMEs, Mid-caps, agricultural consortiums and business networks
• The agricultural, agro-food, forestry, fishing and food production sectors are among the sectors set to receive loans

 

Milan, 21 May 2015 – Intesa Sanpaolo and the European Investment Bank (EIB) today signed an agreement for a lending facility of EUR 150 million for the agricultural and agro-food industry.

 

The agreement was signed today in the presence of Maurizio Martina, Minister of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, Carlo Messina, CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo, Dario Scannapieco, Vicepresident of the European Investment Bank and Ezio Castiglione, Chairman of Ismea at “The Waterstone”, the banking group’s exhibition space inside Expo Milano 2015.

 

Through Mediocredito Italiano - the business finance hub of the Intesa Sanpaolo Group - and the Group Banks, Intesa Sanpaolo will grant loans of up to EUR 300 million in total on top of the EUR 150 million of funding from the EIB for projects of Small and Medium Enterprises, Mid-Caps, agricultural consortiums and business networks throughout the national territory. Thanks to this agreement, Intesa Sanpaolo aims to provide concrete support for the protagonist sector at Expo Milan 2015, of which the banking Group is the Official Global Partner.

 

More specifically, the end beneficiaries of the EIB loans will be companies which are active not only in the agricultural and agro-food sectors but also those in related sectors including fishing, forestry and food production.

Only those business networks where at least one of the businesses belongs to a relevant sector may take advantage of the loans.

 

“We must give credit to the Italian agricultural sector, a sector which in the past few years has become a strategic one for our country”, commented the Minister of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies Maurizio Martina. “The challenge we face  is to support the work and efforts being made by industries to achieve the target of EUR 50 billion in exports by 2020. We are on the right path to do so – in fact, in the first quarter of 2015 we exported in excess of EUR 8.7 billion worth of Italian agro-foods around the world. This challenge must also be met by providing financial assistance to companies and by making it easier for them to access credit. The operational objectives of the European Investment Plan resonate with the work which we in particular have been doing during Italy’s six-month European presidency. In this context, the first concrete step taken by Intesa Sanpaolo signifies truly good news for improving the outlook and giving hope for the future of so many small and medium agricultural enterprises in our country”.

 

“For us, Expo Milano 2015 is the perfect opportunity to relaunch the Italian economy and for this reason we are very proud to be able to announce an agreement that will provide additional resources to finance small and medium enterprises which represent the fabric of our country’s agricultural sector”, commented Carlo Messina, Managing Director and  CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo. “Today, thanks to this new financing, we are  continuing our lucrative collaboration which sees Intesa Sanpaolo as the main partner of the EIB. The result of our common efforts will make it possible to finance projects aimed at innovation and at increasing productivity in what is a key industry in our real economy”, concluded Messina.