History
CCFS is the only "Purpose Company" of the Italian National Cooperative League that operates in the field of the financial intermediation and other related services, in order to provide its Coops Members with the financial resources they need to support their activity and investments.
CCFS was set up in 1904, in form of a "Cooperative Consortium- LLC ", with the aim to build and operate a local railway in the district of Reggio Emilia, in the Emilia-Romagna Region, around 60 Km west of Bologna.
That first contract and the related works and services made possible the establishment and the development of many other Coops.
At the end of the 70's, the transportation activity was spinned off to a public Body and CCFS changed its original mission into a financial intermediation operator.
This activity is instrumental to achieve (in accordance with its By Laws) the aim to:
* promote the development of the members Companies (Coops and their controlled LLC);
* participate to the development and consolidation of the Cooperative Movement, the national League and other Bodies that are appointed to represent it, in Italy and abroad;
* help the setting up of new Coops in many and diversified economic sectors;
* make easier for its members the access to the credit and other financial resources;
* intermediate the financial resources received by the Coops, providing the other Members with loans, under different technical forms, financial advisoring and other service
Nowadays, its Members are around 1010 Coops (under the Italian law, only Coops and other LLC if controlled by the same Coops are entitled to become CCFS' Members).
They operate all around the Country and in all the fields of economic activity and a great many of them are at the top positions among the biggest and most profitable Companies in their specific Industries.
Manifacturing, construction, consumers and retailers Coops, Purchasing cooperative Group, services to people and companies, these are some of the sectors and activities where the presence of the CCFS Coops Members is most relevant for number of production units and for total amount of turn over.
Last year, CCFS has intermediated around 800 USD million (rough average of the year 2004).
This amount has been collecting from the Coops members with a financial (structural or temporary) surplus by means of deposit accounts that are credited by CCFS with one of the highest remuneration available in the money market.
Around 700 USD million (always on an approximate average) are invested in loans borrowed by the Coops in financial deficit (they have to be members too) at a rate of interest very competitive also in relation to the very diversified conditions that are applied in the domestic credit market.
In some Regions (and not only in southern Italy), where many small Coops members of CCFS are operating, the credit facilities provided by the Consortium are often the sole way to access financial loans.
This is a significant evidence of the importance of the role of the Consortium in order to help the development of a presence of cooperative societies also in areas where it is more recent and less consolidated. CCFS is not a Bank, but operates like a Bank: its financial facilities are given - on the basis of a strict evaluation of the credit merit of the Coop (and/or of its purposed project) - to provide its members either with working or investment capital.
The technical forms of the loans and of the other services provided by CCFS are many and very diversified in order to match the actual and diversified financial needs of the Borrowers.
A special attention is devoted by CCFS in supporting the "social Coops", operating in the areas of social assistance, health services and integration of disadvanteged people. Just to make wider the range of the financial products offered to its Coops members, CCFS has set up many other financial Companies that operate in specific sectors: leasing, real estate, factoring, financial advisory.
Very often CCFS is asked to give its advice in order to examen great and complex projects and to arrange with the partnership of other Banks or Financial Bodies, loans that cover the needs of corporate finance as well , and more often,of M&A and project financing.