As of July, TISE has a new Management Board. Back at the beginning of June, the Supervisory Board decided to entrust Mr Adam Skowroński (pictured right) with the position of President of the TISE Management Board as of 1 July and Mr Dariusz Palczynski (pictured left) with the position of Vice-President as of 10 July. At the same time, the Council thanked Artur Koziol for his six-month mission at TISE.

Adam Skowronski is 57 years old. He holds a doctorate in economics; between 1992 and 2015 he was an assistant professor in the Department of Corporate Finance at the Poznań University of Economics. He has been involved in the banking and finance sector for two decades. Between 2006 and 2007, he was a member of the Supervisory Board of PKO BP SA and later, until 2008, Vice President of the Management Board of PKO BP SA supervising the area of finance, accounting and settlements. From 2008 to 2015, Vice President of the Management Board of SGB Bank in Poznań supervising, inter alia, the areas of finance, risk, restructuring and debt recovery. Co-founder and (from 2015 to 2018) first President of the SGB Cooperative Protection System (IPS SGB). Later, until 2020 – leading the restructuring project of the financial group aiming at the establishment of a Brokerage House, and from 2020 to 2024 – President of the Management Board of ETFL Energo-Utech SA, leading the restructuring of the company that ended with the approval of the arrangement.

Dariusz Palczynski is 53 years old. He is a graduate of the Warsaw University of Technology. From the beginning, his career has been connected with banking and finance. He worked at PKO BP SA, Bank Millenium, Getin International. He sat on the boards of BIK and SGB CDR Investment. He has advised various companies; most recently the WSE Janmar.

The beginning of this year was a time of major changes at the Socio-Economic Investment Society (TISE SA). Just before Christmas Eve, our current owner, the French bank Crédit Coopératif, signed an agreement to sell 100% of TISE’s shares to the Polish Poznań Cooperative Bank (PBS).

TISE had been a member of the Crédit Coopératif group since June 1991, i.e. since its registration. Since 2009, this French cooperative bank owned 100% of TISE’s shares. PBS Bank belongs to the SGB cooperative group, of which TISE was one of the largest shareholders for many years (until March 2023); so we have known each other for a long time!

On 3 January 2024, TISE’s General Meeting of Shareholders established a new Supervisory Board (its composition here: https://tise.pl/team/), which appointed Mr Artur Koziol as Chairman of the Board of Management . The new president of TISE is 65 years old, a graduate of the Warsaw School of Planning and Statistics (now the Warsaw School of Economics). He has worked for and led teams at various commercial banks, leasing companies, brokerage firms and advisory firms. He also has extensive experience in the area of human capital management.

PBS Bank has been in business for 130 years and is one of the oldest cooperative banks in Wielkopolska and one of the largest cooperative banks in the country. It directs its offer to medium and small manufacturing, service and trading companies, craftsmen, the agricultural sector, households and area budget units. It is a community bank. And this is what makes the two institutions fit together,’ says Artur Kozioł. TISE will retain its current profile as a loan fund for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and for social economy entities and NGOs. Thanks to the support of Poznań Cooperative Bank, its localisation and good cooperation with the network of cooperative banks, we will be even closer to the borrowers from our target groups, concludes the new president of TISE.

Social and Economic Investment Company (TISE) has made first capital interventions using the FKIS Fund (Social Equity Investment Fund) by granting subordinated loans to two social enterprises, and also by taking up shares in one of them.

In autumn 2018, Social and Economic Investment Company won a competition organised by the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy under the EU’s programme POWER for developing a pilot social venture capital fund for social enterprises. In December 2019, Larigo Group, a non-profit company from Łódź Voivodeship, and Stowarzyszenie Klinika Jeździecka from Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship were the two social enterprises to become the first investees.

Social Venture Capital (SVC) is a method of financing using a venture capital strategy model and instruments known from the capital market to finance non-governmental organisations, social enterprises or activities that generate a large social impact. The traditional financing model is mainly based on loans or guarantees, and thanks to SVC, these entities can use the equity or quasi-equity instruments.

TISE has established a company – Fundusz Kapitałowych Inwestycji Społecznych (FKIS Fund), which will carry out the investments on its behalf.

As for Larigo Group, FKIS took up 29.6% stake in the Company’s capital and granted subordinated loans for a total of PLN 1 million (EUR 240 k) . The non-profit company Larigo Group was established by a social cooperative ‘Larigo Group’ in June 2019. The company handles industrial shredding and destruction of documents and electronic storage media. The investment aims to expand the Company’s reach from central region to nationwide by opening four new shredding facilities in different regions of Poland. This will enable the Company to broaden its client portfolio to include corporate clients. Larigo has 25 employees with disabilities (profound hearing impairment, epilepsy, schizophrenia, pervasive developmental disorders). The planned social effects include, among other things, hiring further 20 people with disabilities within 18 months.

Stowarzyszenia Klinika Jeździecka has received a subordinated loan of PLN 0,5 mln (EUR 120 k) to build an indoor arena to be used throughout the year. As a result, the number of disabled people who receive regular rehabilitation therapy will double. The Association was established in August 2018 and provides such services as hippo-therapy, horse breaking and carriage driving for disabled people. It also organises more ‘traditional’ classes for young and adult horse riders as well as offers accommodation at its guest house.

SVC is an innovative instrument that allows for financing even these projects and ideas of social entrepreneurs that sometimes go beyond the rigid framework for granting loans. This way, even very risky, but socially important projects may be implemented. I do hope that, if our pilot exercise is successful, we will be able to scale it up, and the development of Polish social entrepreneurship sector will gain momentum, declares Michał Radziwiłł, President of FKIS.

According to Milena Błaszkiewicz, President of Stowarzyszenie Klinika Jeździecka, such a financial instrument will make it possible for social enterprises without solid bank collateral to carry out projects important for the local community.

In this project, we use our many years of experience in both operating in the traditional venture capital market for several years and in lending to social economy entities in Poland and in Central Europe for more than ten years, says Mikołaj Kowalczyk, President of TISE.

About the project

PLN 11 million has been allocated for capital investments under the SVC-FKIS- TISE project.  The funding comes from the EU’s Operational Programme Knowledge Education Development (measure 4.1. Social Innovation) and TISE’s own funds. Transactions may be concluded until end-June 2023 or until the funds are exhausted. The investments will be long-term, even up to 10 years.

The project offers financial support in the form of the following two financial products: capital and subordinated loans (facilitating the acquisition of financing from other sources) and consultancy for supporting investors.

The Fund supports entities across the country by investing in social enterprises of various legal forms that pursue projects in the areas of care services, creating jobs for people at risk of social exclusion, assistance in achieving or maintaining independence, and ecology.

Each social enterprise wishing to join the Programme will have to meet five basic criteria:

There are known training schedules under the second accreditation in the Programmer project prepared by two training institutions that have already obtained accreditation: Altkom Akademia offering a three-path training: Web front end, Full stack React / Vue, Java and C-School on two paths: Full stack React / Vue, Java. The schedule can be found here:

https://programator.dudaone.com/our-services

Please be advised that as part of the supplementary accreditation received the application of one training organizer offering two additional paths: a PHP programmer and an automated testing programmer. The application is being evaluated, the results of the accreditation will be known at the latest in the last week of July 2019. In the event of a positive evaluation, the training schedule will be made available in July 2019.

The PROGRAMATOR project is run by the TISE / Asister consortium within the framework of the Program and Pencil Program financed by the EU Operational Program Knowledge Education Development

Yesterday, on the occasion of the 95^th anniversary of the Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego was held the BGK Partner Gala during which TISE was awarded a special prize for “special contribution and achievements in the distribution of EU and national funds for entrepreneurship development and supporting the mission of social economy entities.” During eight years of cooperation between BGK and TISE we granted over 4 000 loans under several dozen operating contracts worth than a half a billion złotys.

Thank you!