Most of this amount concerns small and medium-sized businesses, which had taken out loans guaranteed by the State during the years of the coronavirus.
(AFP/FRED TANNEAU)
It was one of the symbols of “whatever it takes”: state-guaranteed loans (PGE) from the Covid era distributed throughout the economic fabric of the country reached an amount of 145 billion euros. If the largest has since been reimbursed,
the outstanding amount of these PGEs, subscribed especially during the health crisis, still reached 38.4 billion euros at the end of 2024,
said Monday, December 30, Bpifrance, confirming information from the newspaper
Les Echos
.
Excluding large companies, 804,000 PGEs were distributed for a total amount of 129 billion euros, of which approximately 37 billion (29%) remain to be repaid, the public investment bank detailed to AFP.
90% guarantee
Concerning large companies, the outstanding amount is 1.4 billion euros (9%) out of a total amount of 16 billion.
Mainly distributed between 2020 and 2022, the PGE guaranteed 90% by the State allowed many companies to hold on during the pandemic and to replenish their cash flow on advantageous conditions.
According to Bpifrance, 565,000 PGEs (i.e. 70% representing 72% of the total amount) were set up between March 2020 and the end of July 2020, the majority of them covering a maximum duration of six years, maturing between April and July 2026. According to an agreement extended in January 2024, companies in difficulty which wish to reschedule the EMPs from which they have benefited can do so until December 31, 2026.
Tricky loans to repay
The recovery of the remaining sums is colored by the uncertainty of a political and economic context with unfavorable prospects. In a survey carried out in 2022 by the Court of Auditors and relayed by
Les Echos
22% of companies having opted for reimbursement in 2026 already said they feared not being able to reimburse their PGE.
At the start of winter 2024-2025,
increases in business failures are still marked,
resulting in part from the “catch-up effect” after the sharp slowdown in insolvencies during the Covid period”, specified the Banque de France in mid-December.
The claims rate is thus around 9% of companies (of all sizes) in number,
equivalent according to Bpifrance to “a level of gross compensation of around 3.8%, the net cost for the State being significantly lower because corrected for the commissions received”. “You can have a lot of failures of small businesses with small guaranteed loans which ultimately will have little impact on the budget” noted Frédéric Visnovsky, national credit mediator at the Banque de France, in the columns of
Echos
.
