Fördermittel

Fördermittel are the public support instruments a pharmacy may draw on when it is founded, taken over or expanded. In practice they are mostly subsidised loans rather than grants, offered by the federal promotional bank and by the promotional banks of the individual Länder, sometimes alongside a guarantee that stands in for security the borrower cannot provide, and sometimes alongside a subsidy towards advisory costs. The attraction is usually a lower interest rate than a commercial loan, a longer term, or a period at the start during which only interest is paid.

How the money reaches the borrower surprises most first time applicants. With few exceptions the promotional bank does not deal with the pharmacy directly. The application runs through the Hausbank, which examines the project, takes on part of the risk and passes the request upward, so the promotional loan is granted through the bank the pharmacy already has a relationship with. That is why the conversation starts with the bank rather than with the programme, and why the quality of the papers taken into that meeting matters. The bank will want a Businessplan it can follow, a view of the Kapitaldienstfähigkeit and a Liquiditätsplanung that shows when the instalments can be met.

One rule catches more applicants than any other. As a general principle the application has to be submitted before the investment begins, and beginning includes signing the purchase contract or placing the order, not only paying the invoice. An investment already started is normally no longer eligible, and there is rarely any way to repair that afterwards. The same logic applies to advisory subsidies, where the engagement usually must not be signed before the decision.

The terms move. Programmes are opened, revised, exhausted and closed, interest rates follow the market, and the eligibility conditions and the required security change with them, so no figure quoted in an article or in this entry can be relied on. The current conditions have to be read from the programme documentation of the promotional bank itself and confirmed with the Hausbank before anything is committed, and the tax treatment of what is received belongs with the Steuerberater.

A last point on sizing. A subsidised loan makes an investment cheaper to finance, not more worthwhile. Whether the equipment earns its keep is answered by the expected volume and the Amortisationsdauer, and a favourable rate applied to a project that does not carry itself only spreads the problem over a longer term.