Efficient Resource Allocation in the Context of the Coronavirus Crisis: Towards a Private Equity Fund Financed by Collective Savings

With the coronavirus crisis, we anticipate an aggravation of the inefficiency of the allocation of financial resources in the Belgian economy, with excess idle savings from households and an increasing shortfall of equity for many companies impacted by the economic downturn. We discuss the conditions under which, on the one hand, the savings surplus could be mobilized, and on the other hand, the corporate world could accept the infusion of outside equity capital. The proposed solution, following standard Asset & Liabilities Management (ALM) principles, is the setup of a private equity fund offering callable, convertible and cumulative preferred shares, funded through the issuance of either (i) a popular bond with floating coupon assorted with the government guarantee, or (ii) an asset backed security with a senior fixed coupon and a junior equity tranche, with the collaboration of the financial sector.