The Fund of Funds (FoF) announces the start of an open procedure in accordance with the Public Procurement Act for selection of financial intermediaries for the implementation of the financial instrument (FI) Capped “Portfolio Guarantee for Circular Economy” with the possibility for combination with grants (NRFA) in a single operation.

The public resources for the FI of BGN 537.7 million, incl. for guarantees – BGN 339.6 million and grants – BGN 198.1 million, are funded by the “Competitiveness and Innovation in Enterprises” Program 2021-2027 (CIEP), co-financed by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The selected intermediaries will be required to provide over BGN 1.5 billion of working capital and investment loans to SMEs and large enterprises under alleviated conditions for implementation of energy efficient and circular production models.

The capped portfolio guarantee provided by the FoF will cover 80% of the credit risk of the financial intermediaries on an individual loan basis and up to 25% on a portfolio level.

The grants will be provided to the final recipients by the intermediaries along with the loan in the form of technical support for conducting an energy audit and/or as a capital rebate for repaying part of the loan after the investment is completed and the achieved results are reported.

Eligible participants in the selection procedure are financial and/or credit institutions as defined by the Credit Institutions Act or associations that include such institutions, whose activity is based in the Republic of Bulgaria.

This is the financial instrument with the highest amount of public resources within the new 2021-2027 programming period and is part of the strategic plan of the FoF to encourage economic growth and innovation in Bulgaria, improve access to financing, and stimulate investments.

The participants in the procedure can submit their offers until 09.04.2025. The public procurement announcement was published on 18.02.2025 in the Official Journal of the European Union, and the full documentation is available in the Electronic Public Procurement system at the following link: https://app.eop.bg/today/447383.