(Fixes typo in SMEs) NAIROBI, March 3 (Reuters) - Kenya’s Equity Group Holdings said on Wednesday it had launched a lending facility worth 75 billion Kenyan shillings ($685 million) to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) recover from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. “For the SMEs that have been out of business for a year, working capital has been depleted,” CEO James Mwangi said at a news conference in the capital Nairobi. Kenya’s second biggest lender also operates in South Sudan, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the first nine months of 2020, its pre-tax profit fell to 19.76 billion shillings from 24.79 billion shillings in the same period of 2019. Over the same timeframe, its loan book grew 30% to 453.9 billion shillings, while customer deposits increased 45% to 691 billion. Last year, Kenya’s central bank governor said SMEs needed urgent help to survive the economic slowdown triggered by the pandemic, and that many were at risk of shutting down.