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The project will finance selected capital investments planned for the period 2022-25, as well as Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) activities on products and processes related to the promoter's core business. In particular, these concerns the upgrade and expansion of the installed manufacturing capacity of particleboard and furniture produced from 100% post-consumer wood.
The concerned investments will strengthen the promoter's competitiveness not only in terms of products offering but also in terms of manufacturing performance. Additionally, the planned RDI activities will reduce energy consumption and emissions through the deployment of modern production technologies.
The project includes investments for the expansion and modernisation of production capacity as well as RDI activities carried out by a European MidCap in Italy.
The project support the promoter's growth and competitiveness while maintaining a strong focus on environmental sustainability. In fact, the project will allow to produce products from 100% post-consumer wood, more efficiently and with higher quality and properties, making them more competitive compared to virgin-wood based products, and thus supporting their further adoption.
The project contributes also to increased social welfare by supporting and consolidating the promoter's core operations in producing more efficiently and with a lower environmental footprint ecological chipboard, melamine-faced panels and Ready-to-Assemble (RTA) furniture made from 100% recycled wood (post-consumer), thus embracing the principles of circular economy.
The project is eligible for the Bank's financing under the Research, Innovation and Digital (RID) Policy Priority Goal. The part of the project focussing on the design and manufacturing of particleboards contributes also to the Bank's CA&ES crosscutting objective. A minor part of the project will be located in a convergence region in Italy and, as such, will support the strengthening of the EU's economic, social and territorial Cohesion objective.
The financing of this project supports innovation through the deployment of modern technology and addresses the market failures associated to investments that generate positive knowledge and technology externalities through the improvement of production processes, the creation of innovative products, as well as cooperation with the academia and key suppliers of equipment, and through workforce skills development and upgrading. Additional environmental externalities relate to the improvements in terms of reduced energy consumption that results in a negligible increase of absolute emissions in presence of a significant increase of production capacity of particleboards produced.
The proposed operation satisfactorily meets the required funding needs of the promoter as it provides for significant flexibility by providing relatively long tenor, pre-amortisation and availability periods. The EIB funding is expected to improve the promoter's financial profile by further diversifying its funding base, by reducing its average cost of funding and by further improving its maturity profile.
The investments will be carried out in existing locations of the "Wood and Furniture" business units. The industrial undertakings included in the project as well as the associated RDI activities on product and processes are not listed in any annexes of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive 2011/92/EU amended by the Directive 2014/52/EU. The investments in machinery and equipment for modernisation and expansion of production capacity will be carried out in existing production sites and fall within their already authorised scope; therefore, the project is not subject to the EIA directive. The EIB will review the environmental aspects of the project during the due diligence process.
The promoter has been assessed by EIB as being a private company not operating in the utilities sector and not having a status of a contracting entity, thus not being subject to EU public procurement legislation. However, upon project appraisal, should the EIB conclude that the promoter is subject to the EU public procurement legislation, then the European Commission will be informed accordingly, which would require the promoter to apply those rules.