The Governing Council will conduct net asset purchases under the PEPP, with a total envelope of EUR 1,850bn, at least until the end of March 2022.

As expected by the market, the Governing Council decided to reconfirm its very accommodative monetary policy stance.

First, the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.50% respectively. The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present or lower levels until it has seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to, but below, 2% within its projection horizon, and such convergence has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics.

Second, the Governing Council will continue the purchases under the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) with a total envelope of EUR 1,850bn. The Governing Council will conduct net asset purchases under the PEPP until at least the end of March 2022 and, in any case, until it judges that the coronavirus crisis phase is over. The purchases under the PEPP will be conducted to preserve favourable financing conditions over the pandemic period. If favourable financing conditions can be maintained with asset purchase flows that do not exhaust the envelope over the net purchase horizon of the PEPP, the envelope need not be used in full. Equally, the envelope can be recalibrated if required to maintain favourable financing conditions to help counter the negative pandemic shock to the path of inflation.

Furthermore, the Governing Council will continue to reinvest the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the PEPP until at least the end of 2023. In any case, the future roll-off of the PEPP portfolio will be managed to avoid interference with the appropriate monetary policy stance.

Third, net purchases under the asset purchase programme (APP) will continue at a monthly pace of EUR 20bn. The Governing Council continues to expect monthly net asset purchases under the APP to run for as long as necessary to reinforce the accommodative impact of its policy rates, and to end shortly before it starts raising the key ECB interest rates.

The Governing Council also intends to continue reinvesting, in full, the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the APP for an extended period of time past the date when it starts raising the key ECB interest rates, and in any case for as long as necessary to maintain favourable liquidity conditions and an ample degree of monetary accommodation.

Finally, the Governing Council will continue to provide ample liquidity through its refinancing operations. In particular, the third series of targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO III) remains an attractive source of funding for banks, supporting bank lending to firms and households.

With this extension Inspirio FGS Fund received additional 6 months to dispose the assets of  Konsolidator, including the stake in Dalekovod.

Dalekovod published an announcement on the Zagreb Stock Exchange stating that Inspirio FGS Fund held a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Fund on 19 January 2021 and decided to extend the duration of the Fund for the next 6 months.

This is particularly important for Dalekovod as Konsolidator, the largest shareholder of the company (60.7%), is under the umbrella of the mentioned fund. In other words, with this extension Inspirio FGS Fund received additional 6 months to dispose of the assets of Konsolidator, including the stake in Dalekovod.

As a reminder, on 4 December 2020 Dalekovod announced that Inspire Investments, which manages the Fund, was obligated to sell the entire assets of the Fund no later than 2 February 2021. Following the mentioned news, the share price of Dalekovod tanked to as low as HRK 5.86 per share (-19% since the announcement). Since then, the share price has somewhat recovered and is currently trading at HRK 6.34 per share, putting it at EV/EBITDA of 6.2x.

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