A new €50m fund has been launched to provide flexible capital solutions to Irish SMEs whose businesses have been directly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The fund was launched this week by DunPort Capital Management and is backed by a €50m commitment from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF).

The fund is aiming to support well-established, historically profitable Irish SMEs with annual turnovers of between €5m and €50m and funding requirements of between €3m and €15m. Capital from the fund may be used to address Covid-19 related challenges, while allowing investee companies to retain existing financing relationships and avoid material shareholder dilution.

“The significant impact of Covid-19 on businesses of all sizes in Ireland will be long lasting,” said Pat Walsh, executive director of DunPort. “To ensure that Irish businesses can exit this challenging period with financial stability and poised for recovery and growth, company balance sheets will require restructuring to transition the build-up of unsustainable short-term liability balances into manageable longer-term obligations.

Ross Morrow, another DunPort executive director, said that his business has seen the most “robust and sustained demand” from Irish businesses for flexible debt solutions since DunPort was founded in 2017. “Given our strong track record of sourcing and providing flexible debt capital solutions to Irish businesses across a wide range of sectors, DunPort is ideally positioned to support ISIF in the deployment of capital under the Pandemic Stabilisation and Recovery Fund,” Morrow added.

In Association with

Donal Murphy, senior investment director at ISIF, said that the new fund is an example of ISIF deploying capital on a commercial basis in support of businesses that generate important economic activity and employment. “This fund offers an effective and flexible way for SMEs to access ISIF capital, as they navigate the challenges created by the pandemic and position themselves for future growth.”

DunPort provides flexible debt and hybrid capital solutions for SMEs and mid-sized corporates across Ireland and the UK, including KB Associates, Unity Technology and Walsh Whiskey.

The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund is controlled and managed by the National Treasury Management Agency.