The peak of the corona pandemic seems to be behind us, but many entrepreneurs are still fighting hard to overcome the effects of the pandemic. For them, the Corona Recovery Loan was created. This is a short-term loan designed to get healthy businesses back on top of their game quickly.
Among other things, the loan can be used to get liquidity back up to par, to quickly make the company more attractive to external funding, or to move more quickly toward structural profits. In short, this is money for growth. ''We help companies that were healthy before the pandemic and have a good plan to become sustainably healthy again now,'' says Emma Schakel. She is a loan specialist at NOM. ''It's a helping hand.''
NOM aims to process loan applications at lightning speed. These should be settled within four weeks. To do that, applicants are asked to complete a questionnaire online and provide additional documents. Experts then review whether a loan application meets the requirements. The applicant company's figures are important, projections and plans even more so, including to determine the amount of interest.
Need for support
From the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Change and the three northern provinces, NOM has received an additional share premium payment* to be deployed for the benefit of the recovery of the northern Netherlands after corona. NOM expects to deploy these funds through four different products, of which the Corona Recovery Loan (CHL) is the first.
Each loan has an amount of between 50,000 and 200,000 euros available, repayable over three years. NOM believes that there will be a considerable demand for the loan, from a wide variety of sectors. This is also the experience gained under the Corona Bridging Loan (COL).
Although the COL - which was completely used up in three rounds - is a different instrument, the target group can overlap considerably. Investment manager Chantal Leijendekker: ''The immediate reason for releasing funds for this loan in particular is that we noticed a great need for it.''
Emma Schakel: "The COL helped for a period of about nine months, but the pandemic lasted much longer. So we were regularly asked if there would be a new scheme. This Corona Recovery Loan is not quite that, but those entrepreneurial questions were what prompted us to set it up this way.''
Wednesday, March 16 applications open
To qualify, a company must meet a list of requirements. For example, the liquidity shortage must be demonstrably a consequence of the corona crisis, there must be a good recovery plan, the company must be considered capable of starting repayments within a year, and there must be a prospect of a sustainable business model.
Chantal Leijendekker: ,,Corona is still working. Raw materials and materials are still hard to come by, for example, stocks need to be replenished, but the cash is not yet available for that. In those cases, the Corona Recovery Loan offers a solution.''
Applications for the loan can be submitted starting next Wednesday, March 16. Emma Schakel: ''We are curious to see what comes our way, but hope it will be busy so we can give as many entrepreneurs as possible a boost.''
*A deposit of an agreed amount into shares by shareholders without issuing new shares.
In this white paper you will learn:
- What you have to deal with when you start working with investors
- Differences and similarities between bank funding, subordinated loan and equity capital
- In what ways NOM as an investor can help you
Please note that this whitepaper is only available in Dutch at the moment. We are in the process of translating this whitepaper.
- Emma Schakel
- Investment Manager Groninger GROEIfonds
