The recent Chief Executive Officer of the European Investment Fund (EIF), Frances Carpenter, enters the Supervisory Board of Encouragement Bank. The decision has been taken during the general meeting of the Bulgarian financial institution. The renowned financier will actively help the process of restructuring Encouragement bank into Bulgarian Development Bank.
The law for the establishment of the Bulgarian Development Bank has been adopted by the Parliament on April 23 this year. It stipulates that the future institution provide long-term investment crediting and development of credit programs for export promotion. A guarantee fund is to be established with the bank and is to provide credit guarantees to small and medium sized enterprises for their loans to trade banks. Thus the real security insufficiency, being a typical problem for the Bulgarian small and medium sized business, is to be encouraged. A Risk Capital Fund is to be established for the financing business ideas in priority economic sectors with greater risk and restrained assets but with a better development perspective.
Development Bank exist in almost all EU member states, including Germany, France, Sweden, Austria, Finland, Latvia, Spain, Italy, Hungary, France, Luxembourg, Slovakia. The total value of their assets is over 500 billion euro. Enacting the Law for the Bulgarian Development Bank makes Encouragement Bank an equal partner of the European development banks.
About Frances Carpenter
Frances Carpenter is one of the most prominent individuals in Europe in the area of risk capital and share financing. The prestige magazine “Real Deals” ranked Carpenter among the 20 most influencing persons in the sector together with the present Prime Minister of Great Britain, Mr. Gordon Brown and the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke.
Carpenter is a graduate of Wadham College, Oxford. He has a bachelor degree with honors in Modern languages from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Paris and the New School for Social Sciences, New York. Frances Carpenter has spended the first years of his career in City Bank (since 1967), working in New York, Geneva and Paris in the area of investment analysis and portfolio management. He moves to Banque Indosuez in 1970 and starts consultancy business in Belgium.
In 1975 he joins the European Investment Bank where he makes his way up from a Credit Activity Director for the UK, Ireland, Northern sea and Portugal to Credit Risk department Director before being nominated for Secretary General in 1996. After being a Secretary General for 6 years, he is appointed Chief Executive Officer of the European Investment Fund on August 1, 2002. He remains on this position up until March, 2008.
