[Article publié le 20 septembre 2024 à 8h36, mis à jour à 13h16] Bpifrance is launching a new fund for individuals. Those who want to invest in unlisted companies will be able to do so with an entry ticket of 500 euros. This initiative, BE3, is the fourth of the public investment bank since 2020 for “democratize” this market, which, apart from professional investors, could not access “that an extremely limited population”capable of“investing 100,000 to 150,000 euros in a single fund at once”observed the general director of Bpifrance, Nicolas Dufourcq, Thursday in front of the press.
“It is now private equity at the level of women and men”he rejoiced, such an initiative still seems unique in Europe.
Democratization of private equity: a performance driver for the asset class?
120 million euros
As a reminder, the bank has already launched Bpifrance Entreprises 1 (BE1), where the minimum stake was 5,000 euros, then BE2 (3,000 euros) and BE Avenir 1 (1,000 euros). BE3 is a fund of funds intended for French tax residents, with a target size of 120 million euros. It concerns approximately 1,200 companies, of which the client receives the list upon subscribing. The targeted net annual return is 10%. It includes a risk of capital loss, including total, notes Bpifrance, but the large number of companies present lowers the risk of significant losses.
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Bpifrance wishes to make this new operation “a lever of notoriety for this entire ecosystem of private equity”in order to encourage the French to invest in unlisted SMEs.
Already, nine insurers explicitly reference at least one fund from the range in life insurance contracts. It is possible to subscribe to the new fund directly on a simplified digital platform from Bpifrance. Around 12 million people have already been reached by the media about this range since 2020, and it is also possible to find out more on the Éparger autrement website.
Limitation on internal access
Bpifrance teams can subscribe to BE3, “except those who built the product”according to Nicolas Dufourcq, as well as the members of the management committee, and the members of the boards of directors.
This limitation follows the opening by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) of a preliminary investigation, after the revelation that 200 Bpifrance employees, including Nicolas Dufourcq himself, had subscribed to BE1.
The more restrictive internal subscription policy was adopted with the launch of BE2, “at the request of our shareholders who asked us to provide additional proof of total disinterest”explained the leader, “knowing that there was (yet, Editor’s note) “There is no legal obstacle to being able to subscribe as we did the first time.”.
This was, he explained in essence, to demonstrate the team’s confidence in this new product. He said he was “totally false” to think that it had invested knowing information that other investors did not have. Bpifrance was searched in July 2023, but “We have not had a single contact with the justice system for a year”Nicolas Dufourcq argued on Thursday.
Twice as many business creations as ten years ago
In 2023, the French created almost twice as many businesses as ten years earlier, but this dynamism hides persistent disparities in access to entrepreneurship, which is more difficult in particular for women or residents of working-class neighborhoods. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee), no fewer than 1.05 million businesses were created in France in 2023.
A dynamic fueled mainly by micro-entrepreneurs (63% of business creations in 2023) and which allows France to cross the symbolic threshold of one million companies created for the third consecutive year. In 2013, only 567,000 firms had seen the light of day. Some sections of the population nevertheless remain further removed from entrepreneurship than the average: this is particularly the case for residents of priority urban policy neighborhoods (QPV), of which only 26% were engaged in entrepreneurial dynamics in 2023 according to Bpifrance.
(With AFP)
