Through the eyes #11
Wednesday 13 July 2022
This week we take you to Italy to discover the eleventh story from UniCredit's 2021 Annual Report. Our client Doc Servizi, the largest entertainment cooperative in Italy, was supported by UniCredit with an impact financing loan of €1.3 million to guarantee new employment opportunities and securing jobs and training for workers in the performing arts, one of the Covid-19 pandemic worst hit sectors. Read this success story!
Doc Servizi is the largest entertainment cooperative in Italy and is part of a network of six other companies that together cover all sectors of the cultural and creative industries, as well as the technology sector. Founded in 1990 in Verona with the aim of supporting workers in the performing arts, by the end of 2019 the Doc network represented over 8,400 members, with 33 branches across Italy and a turnover of more than €70 million.
Doc Servizi is committed to helping the entertainment industry navigate the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, reshaping its support for the performing arts to achieve this. At a time when this support has been more essential than ever, UniCredit’s Social Impact Banking’s team support has been vital. In 2021, UniCredit supported Doc Servizi with an impact financing loan of €1.3 million, to be used as part of an investment plan designed to guarantee new employment opportunities for workers in the performing arts.
Part of this plan is to stabilise the professional position of workers in the sector, guaranteeing access to social protection mechanisms and providing unemployed workers the opportunity to develop new professional skills. As the loan falls within the scope of UniCredit’s support activities for profit and non-profit enterprises with clear and measurable social aims, it was classified as an impact financing operation. The offer terms therefore included subsidised financing and the possibility of a partial repayment of interest upon successful delivery of their core objectives.
This means that once Doc Servizi has achieved two of its core social goals, which include stabilising employment opportunities for over 1,000 workers between 2021-2022 and relocating over 400 workers through training courses, UniCredit will grant the cooperative an interest repayment of €10 thousand on the impact loan.
The €1.3 million loan we received from UniCredit has allowed us to overcome the terrible impact of the pan demic on our sector and on our cooperative.
Demetrio Chiappa, Chairman of Doc Servizi, commented: “The €1.3 million loan we received from UniCredit has allowed us to overcome the terrible impact of the pan demic on our sector and on our cooperative. The funding has enabled us to maintain our network of worker members and build adequate training plans for them to ensure employment continuity. Moreover, during the recovery period, the Italian entertainment market has seen more than 20% of technicians change jobs, and the financial capacity granted by UniCredit also allows us to further support and introduce new entertainment professionals to work with Doc Servizi”.
Discover more stories from our 2021 Annual Report here: https://annualreport.unicredit.eu/en?intcid=INT-IG_CTA0070