By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government-sponsored Entrepreneurial Venture Fund is “about 18 months behind” where it wants to be, its chairman revealed yesterday, because the Christie administration has not provided it with fresh funding for more than a year.

Michael Cunningham said the Bahamas Entrepreneurial Venture Fund was effectively ‘running on fumes’ provided by debt repayments and equity dividends from existing companies it had financed, in the absence of fresh capital injections.

Speaking at a press conference to preview next week’s Abaco Business Outlook conference, Mr Cunningham said: “We haven’t received an allocation [from the Government] for more than 12 months now.

“We’ve been running off loan repayments and dividends from companies that have been rather successful in their ventures. We are about 18 months behind.”

The Fund, which was founded under the first Christie administration, is supposed to receive $1 million annual injections from the Government so that it can keep financing viable start-ups and entrepreneurial ideas.

Mr Cunningham’s presence at next week’s Outlook is part of an educational and promotional drive to take the Fund, and what it has to offer, before Family Island entrepreneurs.

He said that while the Fund’s experiences in financing Family Island start-ups had “not been very encouraging” to-date, it had also not received sufficient funding to do what was necessary.

“As it stands now, we strongly feel that $1 million a year will not do what we need in the Family Islands, as it’s very high risk,” Mr Cunningham explained.

“You lose up to 80 per cent of what you put out. If you get back 20 per cent of the funds you put out, you can turn positive bottom line resorts [especially] if you find one company that’s successful.”

The Fund can extend between $50,000 to $200,000 to budding entrepreneur via either debt financing or taking an equity position.

Mr Cunningham said it would consider proposals that appeared feasible, could be sustained and created employment for Bahamians, but admitted that the Fund was essentially in a holding pattern and limited in what it can currently do until more funding is received from the Government.

“We’ve not had a very encouraging experience in the Family Islands in terms of the amount of money disbursed so far,” he added.

“We have been very encouraged by the Government’s support, although we’ve not had the funding required and needed to do the things we want to do.

“We’ve seen success in New Providence, but very little success in the Family Islands due to the lack of infrastructure and lack of big companies entrepreneurs can feed off.”

At last count, the Fund had financed 50 to 60 entrepreneurs and start-up companies. It had invested around $4.3 million in these businesses, via a mix of debt and equity positions.

Mr Cunningham said it also provided assistance to help entrepreneurs “get off the ground”, and help in areas such as sales and marketing support.