Life insurance, per, pea: here is how your savings will be able to finance the defense

The government wants to encourage savers to finance the defense industry. Life insurance, PER, PEA … This is how your savings can be directed to this strategic sector.

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The savings of the French will well be called under the flags. But without compulsory conscription: the Minister of Economy and Finance, Eric Lombard, hammered it on the occasion of the day devoted to the financing of the industrial and technological defense base (BitD) this Thursday, March 20: “The challenge is rather to offer savers a greater number of investment opportunities, responding to their need, so that individuals who wish to lead their savings to our defense industries.”

Exit therefore the idea of ​​forcibly mobilizing the savings held on their booklet A, or of creating a new investment dedicated to the financing of the defense, the Minister of the Economy being able to resort “To savings products that (the French) already use”namely: life insurance, the retirement savings plan (PER), the equity savings plan (PEA) and employee savings plans (PEE, Pero, Percol). To do this, the government intends to encourage the creation of a particular genre investment funds, called the Private Equity funds. Their goal: to invest in unlisted companies on the stock market. Except our 9 national champions (Airbus, Thales, Dassault Aviation, etc.), our industrial defense sector is made up of 4,500 companies (VSE, SMEs and ETI) which, for the vast majority, belong to the universe of the “unlisted”. To finance themselves, they can use Private Equity funds, which collect investors’ money for – among others – enter their capital, as we would buy shares on a listed company.

Volunteer investors … or who ignore each other

To access this type of fund, it will therefore be necessary to look at the side of account units (UC) of your various long -term savings products. The investment in the unlisted is indeed an unmarked placement, which presents a risk of capital loss (and generally noted 6 or 7 out of 7 on the risk scale). You will soon be able to find among the UC offer of your insurer of private equity funds whose launches were announced this Thursday, March 20. The public investment bank (Bpifrance) will for example market a fund “Bpifrance Defense”,, “Which will allow the French to invest from 500 euros in a BPI fund (…) which will invest in SMEs and defense startups itself”detailed this Thursday Nicolas Dufourcq, director general of the BPI.

On the same model, Henri Marcoux, deputy director general of Tikehau Capital, announced, during a round table at the Ministry of Economy this Thursday, that this asset manager – who so far reserved these funds to an institutional clientele (banks, insurers) – was going to think “To an account unit for life insurance and the PER, in collaboration with the Société Générale”at destination, therefore, individuals. Note, however, that as regards Bpifrance, go through your life insurance or your PER will not even be compulsory: it is also expected that you can invest in this new “live” fund, that is to say with your liquidity via the BPI website.

A priori, the financing of the French defense will therefore be based on a contingent of voluntary investors. But in reality not only. Since the entry into force of the Green Industry Lawpart of the savings placed in life insurance and PER is indeed automatically arranged towards private equity funds, for savers who have opted for controlled management – which is the default option in PER. At each payment, Between 4 and 15% of the amount (Depending on the risk profile chosen) is now directed to unlisted assets, “Including in the defense sector”specifies the press release on the financing of the BitD. In other words, funds from Private Equity pre -existing day ads are already investing in companies in the defense sector.