Monthly Archives: September 2006

CGI raises $7.3bn to make the world a better place

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The 2006 meeting of the CGI (Clinton Global Initiative), one of the most powerful initiatives that create and implement commitments to solve the world’s most pressing problems, took place last week in New York. The amount of commitments raised during the meeting (Sept 20-22)amounted to $7.3bn. CGI brings together heads of states, CEOs of private companies and heads of foundations to learn, discuss and provide solutions and commitments to the most challenging problems in the world today. The 4 areas covered are energy and climate change, global health, poverty alleviation and mitigating religious and ethnic conflict. Their website offers the webcasts and transcripts of all the sessions which is highly recommended. What differentiates CGI from other big muttinational initiatives in the past is that they are tackling the world challenges by fully respecting and including the voice, knowledge of the local communities that are facing the challenges. There were 215 commitments so it is impossible to include them here. Just to mention a few in the area of microfinance FINCA, Grameen, BRAC, Citigroup, Opportunity International, Standard Chartered Bank, ACCION-AIG.

Procredit Holding’s significant capital increase: New private-sector investors

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Procredit Holding AG, the parent company of the largest microfinance group in the world, announced a significant capital increase of EUR 74mn to make their paid-in capital a total of EUR 216mn. The new private sector investors are 1)TIAA-CREF, a US based asset management company with more than $380bn in assets under management and the leading provider of retirement saving products in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields and 2) the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund. These two American investors purchased non-voting preference shares amounting to EUR 40.5mn and the company’s existing shareholders Kfw, FMO , IFC and responsAbility Global Microfinance Fund also participated in the capital increase.
This seems so far the largest private equity investment in microfinance by a single private sector investor. TIAA-CREF invested $43mn in Procredit Holding AG. Development World Markets advised Procredit Holding AG on this transaction.
According to the press release of Procredit the additional capital will be used to expand Procredit activities in Sierra Leone, Honduras and Mexico. Procredit currently operates in 18 countries in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. As of the end of July 2006, the Procredit group had a loan portfolio of EUR 1.8bn and deposits of EUR 1.5bn outstanding to more than half a million of micro and small entrepreneurs in developing countries and transition economies. News releases. Procredit, TIAA-CREF, DWM.

Congratulations Kiva!

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Kiva, the first web-based p2p business making it possible for anyone to lend to a specific microentrepreneur in the developing world -empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty- has been given the official status as a nonprofit, or 501(c)3 (Kiva’s article) One can choose a business/microentrepreneur and start making loans from US 25 dollars using a PC and a Paypal account. I sincerely congratulate Jessica and Matthew Flannery for their terrific work in making Kiva what it is today. I have been following Kiva from last year and it has been fascinating to see how it has grown exponentially from a website showing one MFI in Uganda and a small list of microentrepreneurs to a major portal connecting people to microentrepreneurs from around the globe by partnering with numerous MFIs. Business Week ran an article on Kiva this summer with a spot-on title. An Ebay for Microfinance.