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NEW IDEAS FROM THE WORLD BANK OF SMALL AND
MEDIUM
ENTERPRISES
World Bank Group SME Department
Vol. 2, No. 1 March
2001
A thriving SME sector
is crucial to spurring growth and reducing poverty
in
developing and transition economies.
But financial institutions often avoid SMEs,
sensing
—
understandably
—
that the transaction costs
of financing them will be
excessively
high. What SMEs need is not to be left without
access to capital, but
approached on a
new model that combines early-stage equity
investment and
performance-enhancing
technical assistance, writes Bert van der Vaart,
CEO of Small
Enterprise Assistance
Funds (SEAF). This US- and Dutch-based NGO manages
a
network of 14
commercially driven investment funds
worldwide with total assets of
$$140 million,
and has
developed a unique “equity plus assistance”
approach to SME
investing.
Small and medium sized enterprises
(SMEs) Sare widely credited with generating the
highest rates of revenue and employment
growth in virtually
all
economies. In
transition and developing
countries open to foreign direct investment, they
also tend
to pay disproportionately
more in taxes and social security contributions
than either
their larger and smaller
counterparts. Larger enterprises, especially
multinationals,
often find a way to
reduce their tax obligations through transfer
pricing, royalty
payments, and
negotiated tax holidays. Microenterprises, on the
other hand, often fall
in the informal
sector, neither paying taxes nor making
social security
contributions.
Yet if SMEs
constitute a critical dimension of growth and
development and are often
well
positioned to achieve high revenue and profit
growth, why have private and
public
financing institutions alike tended to avoid
investing in them?
The
reasons are multiple and, for the most part,
understandable.
For private
investors, the amount of work required to invest
relatively small sums into
several SMEs
seems unattractive compared to the work needed to
support fewer
investments in larger
companies. Moreover, investing in local SMEs also
often
involves working with
entrepreneurs who are less familiar with
conventional
financing relationships,
business practices, and the English language than
principals
of larger firms.
Accordingly, most private capital would much
prefer to invest in a
few large-asset
There are broader issues to be considered as well,
including the lack
of transparency in
local legal systems and governments that make
investing in these
countries difficult
at best.
enterprises in
fields such as pharmaceuticals,
telecommunications or privatized
industry rather than in smaller companies with
relatively few
assets, low capitalization and a perceived greater
vulnerability to
market conditions.
Public development institutions can also encounter
high
administrative costs in making SME
investments. These can be coupled with
perceptions that local SMEentrepreneurs
may not be trustworthy, and that working
with them might bring fewer visibly
“
developmental” benefits
than targeting more
poverty-focused
fields such as microfinance.
Local commercial banks too are often
biased in favor of large corporate borrowers
with considerable assets. This has
meant that even the lines of credit local banks
receive from development institutions
for on-lending to SMEs are often under-utilized.
SME entrepreneurs’ lack of experience
in accounting and other areas of financial
documentation makes it difficult for
banks or other potential sources to assess their
creditworthiness and cash flows, again
hindering the provision of financing.
Combined, these factors have largely
left what should be the most dynamic sector of
the economy in developing countries
lacking the capital it needs to realize its
potential.
SEAF
believes that the investment levels it
takes,coupled with its focused efforts on
increase value after investments,
allows it to invest at relatively attractive
multiples.
This offers an array of
potential exit possibilities. By contrast, many
conventional
emerging market
private equity investors have had disappointing
records in achieving
exits over the
last four years. SEAF’s approach to
early
-stage investing in SMEs thus
may one day be seen as one of the more
appropriate means of investing in developing
countries. In the meantime, SEAF is
achieving its developmental objectives by
rapidly increasing the revenues,
productivity, and employment growth of its
investee
SMEs.
世界银行对中小企业的援助计划
中小企业的蓬勃发展对促进经济增长
，
减少发展中国家的贫穷和经济转型具有重
要意义
。
但金融机构往往因为向中小企业融资的费用过高而减少贷款甚至不向他
们贷款。中小企业援助基金会的
CEO
Bert van der Vaart
写道中小企业需要的并
不是没有机会获得资本，而是在一个包含
早期阶段股权投资
<
/p>
加强技术援助的模
型上前进
.
这个以美国和荷兰为基础的非政府组织管理着
14
个商业化投资基
金，在全球范围内
具有
1.40
亿美元总资产，并制定了独特的
< br>“
股权加援助
”
对中
小型企业投资的方式。
几乎在所有经济体中，中小企业是促进经济增长和提高劳动就
业率的一大功臣。
在转型国家和发展中国家的外国直接投资开放
，
他们也往往不成比例地比任何的
更大和更小的同行多支付税收
和社会保障缴款。较大的企业，特别是跨国公司，
往往会找到一种方法，通过转移定价，
专利费的税务义务，并协商免税以减少税
费。另一方面，小企业经常在非正规部门，既不
纳税，也不缴纳社会保障款。
然而，如果中小型企业掌握了增
长和发展的临界尺寸，往往能够获得高收入和
利润的增长
。
但为什么有私人和公共金融机构都倾向于避免对他们进行投资呢？
其
原因是多方面的，并为大部分可以理解的。对于私人投资者，投入较少的资金
到几个中小
型企业需要的工作量与投入到大企业相比，似乎缺乏吸引力。此外，
投资本地中小型企业
也往往涉及与对企业融资，商业做法，英语不太熟悉的企业
家合作。还有更多的问题要考
虑，包括本地法律体系和政府透明度的缺失，如药
品，电讯或私营工业企业，而不是在资
产相对较少的
小公司，这些公司资本化程度低，以及被认为极
易受到市场条件的影响。公共
发展机构也会遇到对中小企业投资的高额的行政费用，再加
上
SMEentrepreneurs
可能不可靠。与他们一起
工作可能会带来明显减少
“
发展
”
比
更针对小额信贷扶贫等为重点领域的利益
。
地方商业银行也往往偏向于有相当大
的资产的大公司借款人的
。这意味着，即使是当地银行从发展机构获得的信贷额
度转贷给中小企业往往利用不足<
/p>
。
中小企业企业家在会计和其他财务文件方面的
< br>经验不足，使得银行或其他潜在来源难以评估其信用及现金流量，从而不符合融
资
的条件。总之，这些因素都在很大程度上影响着缺乏资金去实现其潜力的发展
中国家的经
济发展最具活力的经济部门。
<
/p>
中小企业援助基金会认为
，
他们的投资水
平和投资后的努力允许它投资在相对具
有吸引力的倍数。这就提供了一个潜在的出口机会
。与此相反，许多新兴市场的
私人股权投资者过去
4
年里的出口令人失望
。
因此中小企业援助基金早期
阶段的
做法可能有一天被视为投资发展中国家最合适的手段。同时，该基金通过迅速增<
/p>
加中小企业的收入，生产率和就业增长来实现其发展目标。
研究中小企业融资要参考的英文文献
英文图书和期刊类文献：
[1]Allen ,Gregory ,“Relationship
Lending and Lines of Credit in
Small
FirmFinance,
”
Journa
l of Business,V
ol.68,no.3.(1995),pp.351
-381
．
[2]Aghion,P.,Incomplete contracts
approach to financial contracting,Review of
Economics
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