History
The bank was established by an Act of Parliament as the Industrial Development Bank (IDB) in September 1944. IDB was initially an arm of the Bank of Canada, and the Governor of the Bank was also Chief Executive Officer of the IDB. During its first years, the bank’s main role was to help small “industrial enterprises” convert from military production to peace-time operations after the Second World War.
IDB was one of the first and largest development banks in the world.
The IDB Act was first amended in 1952 to allow the bank to offer financing to companies in the commercial airlines industry. By the mid-1950s, one out of every 10 planes in Canada was financed by IDB. Later, IDB’s Act was amended two more times to allow the bank to lend to companies in almost all industries.
By 1964, twenty years after its foundation, IDB had 22 branches across Canada, covering main cities such as Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver and also had operations in relatively rural areas. In the mid-1970s, the bank added consulting and training to its financial offerings to help entrepreneurs better manage their businesses.
In 1975, the name of the bank changed to Federal Business Development Bank (FBDB) and its venture capital operations were started. At the time, the bank was known as “a lender of last resort”—supporting businesses in difficulty.
In 1995, Parliament passed the Business Development Bank of Canada Act, leading to a new name and mission for the bank. The Act mandates BDC to promote entrepreneurship, with a special focus on the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and to fill the market gaps and maximize financing alternatives for businesses by offering services that were complementary to those available from other financial institutions.
BDC is financially self-sustaining. Since 1997, it has been profitable and paid a total of $180 million in dividends to its sole shareholder, the Government of Canada. Every ten years, the Minister of Industry must conduct a review of the provisions and operations of the BDC Act. BDC is currently undergoing a regular legislative review that started in the fall of 2010.
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