January 17th, 2008
IPEG event with Roben Farzad, author of “Can Greed Save Africa?”
We have an event scheduled for Thursday,January the 31st.
Speaker: Roben Farzad, author of Businessweek cover story “Can Greed Save Africa?”
Topic: His motivations for writing the story; preconceived notions;observations and epiphanies in the six countries he visited.
Date and Time: January 31st 2008, Thursday. 6:00-8.00 pm
Venue: W J Warren hall (Amsterdam Ave. and 115th st.) Room 208 (73) Columbia University.
If you would like to attend or have any questions, please e-mail us at emeka[dot]okafor [AT] gmail[dot]com
October 4th, 2006
Private Equity Panel at Columbia Business School
This note is from IPEG member, Christian Lee, who has organized a panel on “The Role of Private Equity in Emerging Market Development” under the aegis of Columbia Business School’s Social Enterprise Program on Friday Oct 6th from 2:45 pm to 4:00 pm. I know it’s fairly short notice, but this really is a terrific event with a super panel and falls right in line with IPEG member interests.
The panelists are:
Tom Barry, Founder and CEO, Zephyr Management
Bert van der Vaart, President and CEO, SEAF
Peter Trooper, Senior Investment Officer, IFC Private Equity Department
Yasmina Zaidman, Portfolio Manager, Acumen Fund
Professor David Beim, co-author of the “Emerging Financial Markets” textbook, will moderate.
The panel was designed to bring together a group of individuals that all make investments in emerging markets, but all with different motivations, expectation of returns, and ways of measuring success. We hope that by having such a diverse group of panelists we can examine some of the key questions at the intersection of development and private sector investment, including, “What role do private equity investors play in emerging market economies?”, “Are positive investment returns synonymous with positive development impacts?”, and ”To what extent can or should investors sacrifice medium-term returns for long-term development in emerging markets?”
If you are interested, please register for the conference here. In addition to this panel, there are a number of other interesting panels, including a discussion on Bottom of the Pyramid strategies, Multinationals and Corruption, etc.
May 8th, 2006
VC/PE Funds for Development
I was browsing the World Bank bookstore in Washington D.C. last week when I came across a little book called Venture Capital and Private Equity Funds for Development. Here’s what the blurb says.
Entrepreneurs face a multitude of challenges when setting up and growing their business venture. This is even more so for entrepreneurs in emerging markets and developing countries. Access to finance is often the main challenge. The Venture Capital and Private Equity for Development Index gives access to the major funds financing business in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. This practical guide has an easy to use index with funds listed by key fund attributes such as regions, sectors and company size financed. It lists over 270 funds investing in developing countries. The Index is compiled by the Business in Development program of Dutch National Committee for International Cooperation and Sustainable Development (NCDO) in cooperation with the Adapppt Foundation in The Netherlands.
The index, in particular, looked like a useful tool for those of us interested in the role of private capital in economic development.
In addition, the folks who put this book out also have a very interesting website up called the Bid Network. The Bid Network is an online community which lets entrepreneurs submit business plans, which are then routed to investors and partners. I have no idea how efficient or successful the network is, but a web-based model could certainly remove a lot of the transaction costs. Have a look.
March 28th, 2006
CIS Private Equity Conference in Moscow
I know Moscow is a long way off for most IPEG members, but if you or any of your colleagues are interested in the private equity space in Russia and/or the former CIS countries, this may well be a good conference to attend. You can find the details for the conference on the IPEG Yahoo Groups website (direct link here). Thanks to IPEG member, Tom Nastas, who is a speaker at this conference, for sending this along.
March 7th, 2006
IFC Global Private Equity Conference
The IFC and the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA) are hosting the 8th Annual Global Private Equity Conference on May 11th and 12th in Washington D.C. The conference is titled Emerging Markets Private Equity: Breaking Through Boundaries. The keynote speaker is David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group. The conference will include, among others, panels on Views from the LP seat, SME issues, Emerging Secondaries Markets, and discussions on regional/frontier markets among developing countries. I presume this will be a terrific networking opportunity for some of you?
February 27th, 2006
Financing Gaps and the Business Environment
Over at the World Bank PSD blog, Pablo Halkyard makes a post of great relevance to the interests of our group. Pablo links to 3 separate papers at the World Bank, each of them on subjects that we’ve discussed at some point within IPEG.
1. How important are financing constraints? The role of finance in the business environment, by Maksimovic, Ayyagari and Demirguc-Kunt
2. Can foreign portfolio investment bridge the small firm financing gap around the world?, by April Knill
3. Taking the bad with the good: volatility of foreign portfolio investment and financial constraints of small firms, by April Knill
Pablo also points to the World Bank’s updated SME database.
February 24th, 2006
Vinod Khosla Floats Khosla Ventures
[Via VC Circle] What better way to follow up a post about Kleiner Perkins than with a post on their superstar partner, Vinod Khosla. Khosla, who had reduced his involvement with KPCB, has launched his own VC fund (it’s his personal money, for the time being), called Khosla Ventures, which will invest primarily in alternative energy and clean fuels. As you can see, the website is very much in beta stage, but there are links to some excellent presentations on biofuels and microfinance. Among others papers listed is the Rural Infrastructure Service Commons (RISC) model, which Khosla co-wrote with IPEG member, Dr Atanu Dey.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must mention that I was one of the founding members of Deeshaa Ventures alongwith with Dr Dey, which was set up to implement Dey and Khosla’s RISC model.
February 22nd, 2006
Kleiner Perkins Raises Pandemic Fund
Venture Capital major, Kleiner Perkins has announced that it has raised a $200 million fund to fight global pandemic diseases. Obviously, the interest in such a fund is fueled by the spread of the Avian Flu. Whether KPCB’s definition of pandemic includes HIV/AIDS and Malaria remains to be seen.
“This is a call to action,” Brook Byers, a partner at the firm, said in an interview. He said Kleiner Perkins decided to start a separate fund, called the Pandemic and Bio Defense Fund, rather than make investments through its general funds to call attention to the issue. He said the fund was intended to yield profits, not act as a charity.
…
Mr. Byers said private investments could help accelerate the preparations. “A lot of innovative companies are waiting for a grant from the government,” he said. “There’s not time to wait.” The fund would invest in about a dozen companies in the next three years, Mr. Byers said. While Kleiner Perkins, based in Menlo Park, Calif., normally invests in privately held start-up companies, its fund will invest mainly in established companies, including publicly traded ones.“It’s very time-critical,” he said, “so that leads us to want to invest in companies that have management teams and technology platforms already in place.” The first investment, of $15 million, was made in BioCryst Pharmaceuticals. The company, based in Birmingham, Ala., and publicly traded, has a drug entering early clinical trials that could be an alternative to Roche’s Tamiflu, the anti-influenza drug that is being stockpiled by many governments and that has been in short supply.