Cooperativa Vinícola del Penedès, founded in 1963, has a presence on all five continents and is the world's fifth-largest producer of D.O. Cava. The company will use the financing from the public promotional bank to address rising transport logistics costs and to hold sufficient stock to guarantee supply.
The Institut Català de Finances (ICF) has provided Covides with €1.8 million to drive its international expansion and strengthen its growth.
The financing from the public promotional bank of the Generalitat de Catalunya will help strengthen the export capacity of the cooperative, which allocates 65% of its turnover to exports in more than 50 countries.
Covides Vinyes – Cellers was founded in 1963, born of the will of more than 650 winegrowers who decided to jointly produce the wine from their harvest professionally and with a personality of its own.
With a track record spanning more than six decades, Covides has remained rooted in its local area and true to the collective work of generations of Penedès winegrowers.
The cooperative has three of its own wineries and one cava cellar, and the grape harvest, production and bottling are all managed to preserve the highest quality and efficiency. Covides, present on all five continents, is the world's fifth-largest producer of D.O. Cava.
In the words of ICF's CEO, Vanessa Servera, "the agri-food sector has always been very important to ICF, and it still is today. In a globalised environment, we need solid, competitive companies with an international presence. The fact that this is also a cooperative project with an impact beyond Catalonia makes it all the more significant".
An ICF Lidera Internacionalització loan and an ICF Eurocrèdit loan to consolidate its presence in international markets
ICF has financed the cooperative through two operations: an ICF Lidera Internacionalització loan of €1.5 million and an ICF Eurocrèdit loan of €300,000.
The financing from the public promotional bank will serve to consolidate and further expand its presence in international markets, and will make it possible to address issues such as rising transport logistics costs and global distribution, or the need to hold sufficient stock to guarantee agile, reliable supply across the different markets.
ICF Lidera Internacionalització loans, promoted by ICF and ACCIÓ, aim to encourage Catalan companies with internationalisation projects to expand abroad and to give them the impetus to face the global challenges of the current economic climate. This line offers preferential terms thanks to ACCIÓ's interest-rate subsidy.
ICF Eurocrèdit loans, for their part, offer advantageous terms to Catalan SMEs looking to boost investment, open new markets and develop innovative projects, thanks to co-financing from the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
