EBRD €24 million loan to Poland’s Velvet Care – EuropaProperty

A leading Polish tissue hygiene products manufacturer Velvet Care is launching an ambitious investment programme aimed at expanding and improving its production capacity with the support of a loan by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the parallel support of BNP Paribas Polska.

The financing is part of a wider investment programme that includes the expansion of production facilities, vertical integration as well as the switch to more efficient internal electricity generation with the installation of a gas-fired co-generation plant.

The EBRD will also provide grant financing for an assessment of the potential to produce tissue from recycled fibres.

Velvet Care is a market leader in Poland with main products such as toilet paper, paper towels and various tissue products. It is owned by Abris Capital Partners, a private equity fund active in central and eastern Europe.

Grzegorz Zieliński, EBRD Regional Director Central Europe and Head of Poland, said: “We welcome this new investment with Velvet Care which will further help us to promote two of the EBRD’s key goals in Poland. Our ambition is to strengthen the competitiveness of the country’s economy and at the same time to promote its green transition. In the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic nothing could be more timely.”

The EBRD has responded to the Covid-19 crisis swiftly with the launch of a Solidarity Package. The Bank expects the entirety of its investments of up to €21 billion in 2020-21 to be dedicated to the response to and the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

The EBRD started investing in Poland in 1991 and to date has provided €10.5 billion through 439 projects to all sectors of the economy.