EII vehicle to carry on BES job creation success

The Business Expansion Scheme (BES) was introduced in 1984, as an incentive to private investors to invest long-term equity capital in companies (particularly new and smaller ones), operating in certain sectors of the economy which would otherwise find it difficult to raise such funding and would instead have to rely on loan finance.

The scheme was originally intended to operate for a three-year period, but was renewed on a regular basis up to 2011.

The BES was a great success with, for example, over 1,700 companies availing of funding through these schemes in the eight years from 2001 to 2008.