The Bulgarian Energy Efficiency Fund (BEEF) provides three main categories of financial products:
| Beneficiary |
Interest (annual) |
Maximal Tenor |
Minimal Equity Contribution of the Project Developer |
|
Municipalities |
5 - 9% |
up to 5 years |
10 - 25% |
|
Corporate Clients and Private Individuals |
6 - 10% |
up to 5 years |
10 - 25% |
1) The conditions are one and the same for BEEF direct financing and for co-financing with a commercial bank.
2) The minimum equity contribution from the Project Developer for the proposed project shall be, as follows:
- At least 10% for co-financing mode "BEEF - commercial bank"
- At least 25% for BEEF stand-alone financing.
3) There are NO additional credit conditions (taxes) and the repayment schedule is structured according to the need of the Project Developer.
| Type of Guarantee |
Annual Fee |
Maximal Tenor |
| Partial - 80% on a "pari passu" basis |
0.5 - 2 % |
up to 5 years |
| Partial - 50% on a first-loss basis after the bank-creditor |
0.5 - 2 % |
up to 5 years |
1) Individual (per project) guarantee commitments shall not exceed BGN 800 000.
1) ESCO portfolio guarantee - to attract more ESCO companies into this business and to make ESCOs more comfortable by guaranteeing the risk of their counterparties - the project beneficiaries.
2) Residential portfolio guarantee - to kick-start the market of EE investments in the residential sector, by providing market products that overcome the lack of legislation in the country.
ESCO Portfolio Guarantees
Normally ESCOs would bid for a project and then go to a bank to secure finance for it, or have a line of financing ready and fill it in with projects. The shortcoming of this approach is that typical ESCOs rely heavily on raising debt to fund their performance contracts. This requires that the cash flow of their business is very accurately timed and budgeted. Delayed payments from clients, or defaulting clients may severely disrupt the servicing of the debts of the ESCO itself. With our ESCO portfolio guarantee, we undertake some of the risk of the ESCO and guarantee that we will cover such disruptions in the flow of receivables of the ESCO.
In practice this means the following:
- BEEF signs a framework agreement with the ESCO to issue a portfolio guarantee for a preapproved portfolio of projects;
- The ESCO wins a tender for an energy efficiency project;
- BEEF approves the project and adds it to the portfolio of approved projects;
- BEEF guarantees that it will cover up to 5% (the percentage is negotiable) of the defaults of the delayed payments of this portfolio;
- With this guarantee, the ESCO gets better interest rates on its debt with commercial banks and has a piece of mind that there is 5% failsafe trigger that will prevent cash flow disruptions and will reduce the risk of the clients.
Statistically, the default rate of clients of ESCOs is negligible so that 5% cover of the guarantee is more than sufficient. Delays in payments are more probable and in such cases BEEF will act as a financial buffer to take the shocks.
On the other hand, such product provides an excellent leverage of BEEF's own funds. For example a BGN 500 000 guarantee will facilitate a portfolio of investments in the amount of BGN 10 million.
Residential Portfolio Guarantees
The guarantee works in the following way: BEEF helps the households in a building to develop a good project. Then a first class company is selected to implement the investment. The bank gives the funds to the project developer, but the repayments afterwards come from the individual households. Each household pays proportionately to their built-up area. BEEF guarantees that it will cover the first 5% of defaults within this block (or portfolio of blocks). Statistically the default rates in customers' loans are from less than 1% in some banks, to about 2.5-3%, so a guarantee of 5% will cover fully the risk of the commercial bank.
This product is being developed as a partnership with commercial banks. As mentioned before, the main reason why the EE investments in the residential sector have not materialized yet is because of the lack of adequate legislation. Moreover, in Bulgaria there is no tradition of condominiums or household associations and there is a lack of trust between the families in one building. We found a way to overcome all this by acting as a gluing component between the commercial banks and EE projects in the residential sector.
As a result from the signed general framework agreement for cooperation between the Bulgarian Energy Efficiency Fund (BEEF) and International Asset Bank AD, the bank put on the market two newly developed bank products: "Energy Asset" and "Energy Asset +".
The product structure is correlated with the eligibility criteria for financing under BEEF. The "Energy Asset" product offers a co-finacing mechanism on a 50:50 basis whereas the "Energy Asset +" product is especially developed for financing from International Asset Bank with partial credit guarantee from BEEF, covering up to 80 percent of the amount of the principal of the credit, but not more than BGN 800 000.
