Gimv borrows €150m: does its leverage fit its strategy?

On 24 September 2026, Gimv placed €150m of eight-year bonds with a fixed 5.532% coupon. Management describes added investment capacity. For shareholders in this Belgian listed investment company, the sharper question is how much balance-sheet risk Gimv is adding to a largely private portfolio, and what its investments must achieve to justify the cost.

What Gimv intends to finance

Gimv acquires stakes in mid-sized European companies, supports their expansion and may eventually sell its holdings. Its four platforms cover consumer businesses, healthcare, smart industries and sustainable cities. Gimv Anchor Investments brings a longer ownership horizon: building stakes in established businesses alongside other investors, including WorxInvest.

That structure was already visible in our reporting on Batenburg and Equine Care. The bond does not call for another introduction to those businesses. It raises the question of how Gimv will finance a growing, longer-held portfolio. Management explicitly cites the four platforms and Anchor, but does not allocate the €150m to named acquisitions.

The actual starting point is 9.4% LTV

The loan-to-value ratio, or LTV, compares financial debt net of cash with the asset base Gimv specifies. Its half-year report sets out the calculation at 30 June: €358.8m of financial debt minus €131.4m of cash equals €227.4m of net debt. Gimv uses €2,427.1m of assets net of cash as its denominator. Dividing 227.4 by 2,427.1 gives 9.4% after rounding. This is neither gross debt divided by portfolio value nor net debt divided by shareholders' equity.

Six months earlier, net debt had been €32.2m and LTV 1.5%. Gimv had therefore increased its use of the balance sheet before this new issue. In the first half, it reported €134m of investments, €42m in exit proceeds and a dividend with a €71.8m cash impact. These items help explain cash usage, although they do not by themselves reconcile every balance-sheet movement.

More leverage than two Belgian peers

We compared published ratios at the same date, 30 June 2026. GBL reported LTV of 0.0%, Sofina 1.9% and Gimv 9.4%. Gimv was therefore using considerably more net leverage than these two Belgian investment companies covered by Opulion.

The comparison does not establish a universal safety threshold. GBL had completed substantial disposals and held net cash at June's close. Sofina also owned predominantly unlisted assets, while choosing much lower net debt at that point. Gimv invests directly in European mid-market companies and is pursuing accelerated expansion. Their LTV definitions are not perfectly interchangeable. The useful common question for shareholders is how much growth each company finances through exits, equity and borrowing.

Receiving the cash does not immediately raise LTV

Gimv had €350m of bonds outstanding at 30 June. It repaid €75m in July and says the September issue will bring its bond debt to €425m. That is gross debt, not the LTV. Its €400m undrawn revolving credit facility provides liquidity headroom and should not be counted as money already borrowed.

If Gimv initially holds the €150m proceeds in its bank account, gross debt and cash increase by equal amounts. All else equal, net debt and its ratio are unchanged on receipt. This mechanical illustration does not reconstruct actual cash flows between June and September.

If Gimv then invests all €150m in assets recognised at cost, with nothing else changing, net debt would rise from €227.4m to €377.4m, while the relevant asset denominator would rise from €2,427.1m to €2,577.1m. The resulting LTV would be about 14.6%. This is an Opulion scenario, neither a figure published by Gimv nor a forecast. Acquisitions, exits, cash flows and valuations since June could materially change the outcome.

A certain cost and an unproven benefit

At a fixed 5.532%, the new bond carries €8.30m in annual coupon payments, before fees and taxes, through its October 2034 maturity. The longer tenor reduces the need to refinance this tranche soon, but locks in its cost. For context, the ECB raised its deposit rate to 2.50% on 16 September. That deposit rate is not a comparable borrowing rate for Gimv: the bond also prices the issuer's credit risk and an eight-year commitment.

Gimv targets at least 17.5% annual portfolio returns and reported 9.4% for the first half of 2026 alone. Subtracting the 5.532% coupon from the 17.5% target would be misleading: one is a contractual cash expense, while the other is an ambition that can include unrealised revaluations. Shareholder value will depend on purchase prices, operating growth, costs, potential losses and the proceeds actually realised on exits.

There is another layer of risk: borrowing within portfolio companies is not added separately to the holding company's LTV numerator. Its economic effect still flows through the value of Gimv's equity stakes. Private-asset valuations may be updated less often than listed share prices, while interest payments fall due on schedule.

Opulion's reading: Gimv's reported leverage was below 10% in June, yet higher than GBL's and Sofina's and on a rising path. Long-term borrowing to invest is consistent with its stated strategy. Whether it benefits shareholders will be shown by realised returns after costs, debt-service capacity and discipline on acquisition prices. Attractive underlying companies do not answer that question on their own.