created by the Executive in April 2024 to promote foreign investment in Spain, is beginning to gain cruising speed and is preparing to close this year with more than half of its resources committed. “In December 2024, the first operations were approved and until the end of September we have already approved 48% of the volume of resources to be committed through 13 projects,” he emphasizes, in an interview with this newspaper.
This percentage represents a volume of 960 million co-invested, of the initial 2,000 million with which the fund was endowed. The forecast managed by the state company, which manages the aforementioned financial instrument, is to close this year with 60% of the committed resources, which would be equivalent to 1,200 million. “We are on time and we have the opportunity, if applicable, to be presented to the Investment Committee, which is the one that authorizes the operations, which makes us very optimistic regarding our ability to allocate all the funds by the end of August, as we committed to Brussels.”
The Co-Investment Fund obtained its resources from the 80,000 million euros in credits that Europe provided to Spain in the Addendum to the Recovery Plan. The objective pursued is to co-invest with private operators, mainly institutional and corporate investors, in strategic projects for the environmental, digital or technological transition. This shared investment is carried out either through funds or with direct contributions. “To date, a large part of the resources that we have committed are contributions to funds to optimize the term of placement of resources,” emphasizes Pérez, who highlights that the largest operation was a contribution of 150 million in a fund (Euro Growth Fund IV), which invests in Spanish companies in the growth phase that operate in the digital transformation sector (for example, applications of softwaredata, fintechdigital health and deep tech).
“In this second phase until August we are more focused on carrying out direct investment operations,” adds the person in charge. Good proof of this is the signing, at the end of July, of , the leading online higher education platform in Spanish of the International University of La Rioja (UNIR). In this latest operation, the most important to date, FOCO co-invests with the British manager Schroders Capital, the Swiss Unigestion and the Portobello Fund.
The Co-Investment Fund is not the only new financial instrument that Cofides has taken on since the outbreak of the pandemic. Another very relevant one is the Recapitalization Fund for Companies Affected by Covid-19 (Fonrec), which closed with 89 approved operations worth 779 million euros. “Then others are comfortable and continue with us; and finally there are some, the least, that are either in the restructuring phase or in bankruptcy,” Pérez emphasizes.
Lastly, there is the Social Impact Fund (FIS), also coming from the addendum to the Recovery Plan, endowed with 400 million euros and which is focused on promoting the growth of the impact economy and social entrepreneurship in Spain. “We have already approved 14 operations that total 157 million, which represents 39% of the total budget, and by the end of the year we hope to exceed 200 million euros. The investment possibilities are very broad,” emphasizes the president of Cofides, who gives as an example.
With the sum of these three funds plus the amount of those it manages to support the internationalization of Spanish companies (FIEX and Fonpyme), its own resources and the advisory work that Cofides carries out to the Fedes fund of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), the state company predicts that the managed and advised portfolio will have more than doubled from 2,600 million at the end of 2024 to 5,600 million by the end of 2027.
