Help in crises
Economic Stabilization Fund is making money again
May 15, 2024, 6:41 p.m
In the corona pandemic, the federal government is launching the WSF relief fund. He could have helped companies with up to 600 billion euros. It will later be extended to cushion the energy crisis. Last year the fund again generated a surplus.
The German Economic Stabilization Fund (WSF), which was created during the Corona crisis, has closed a financial year with a profit for the second time. The balance sheet at the end of December 2023 was 109.7 million euros plus, as the federal finance agency in Frankfurt am Main announced. A year earlier, the fund had posted a loss of 26.3 million euros. A profit of 104.1 million euros was in the books for 2022. In the first year of its existence in 2020, the fund made a loss of 25.9 million euros. The federal government’s debt managers explained the increase last year with income from the early repayment of funds and interest income.
The fund was set up by the federal government shortly after the outbreak of the pandemic in spring 2020 to provide direct help to large companies that were in distress due to the Corona crisis, with a total amount originally of up to 600 billion euros. As part of the extension of the WSF, the total volume was adjusted to 250 billion euros as of January 1, 2022. Lufthansa and the travel company TUI, among others, received aid from this pot.
The WSF was originally limited to the end of 2021, but after an extension the fund was able to grant stabilization measures until June 30, 2022. 25 companies were promised aid with a total volume of around 9.6 billion euros. Of this, 6.4 billion euros were paid out by the end of last year, of which 4.4 billion euros were repaid by the balance sheet date. In addition to direct and indirect investments, the fund’s instruments include the refinancing of loans via the state development bank KfW. In the period November 2022 to December 2023, the WSF also served to finance measures to cushion the consequences of the energy crisis.