Budget 2012: Funding boost for mid-cap firms The Business Finance Partnership (BFP), which sees the Government invest alongside pension and insurance funds, has been extended by 20pc to £1.2bn. M&G Investment Management and hedge fund Cairn Capital are among seven fund managers on a shortlist to access "some or all" of an initial £700m of public money. A further £100m will be allocated to non-bank sources of finance aimed at smaller companies, such as 'peer to peer' lenders, which directly allocate funds from both savers and professional investors to entrepreneurs. The BFP is inspired by an M&G fund which has seen pension and insurance funds commit almost £1.5bn to lend sums of between £30m and £100m to medium-sized firms. The Government hopes the BFP will stimulate a UK market for private placements of debt in these companies. The BFP fund managers are expected to raise their own funds which are matched by the Treasury. There was also an attempt to revive the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG), which sees the Government act as a guarantor on bank lending to small businesses. The Government hopes it can make the EFG, which has been in steady decline, more attractive to lenders by giving a guarantee of up to 20pc of banks' total loan books in the scheme, up from 13pc.