New York, NY, March 30, 2022 – Ladies’s World Banking Asset Administration (“WAM”) has introduced the ultimate closing of its second fund, WWB Capital Companions II, L.P. (“WWBCP II” or “the Fund”). Following its first closing of $75 million in March 2020, WWBCP II held a closing closing in March 2022, bringing the overall Fund dimension to $103 million. The Fund seeks to assist shut the gender hole in monetary inclusion, whereas demonstrating the enterprise case for gender lens investing by attaining enticing returns for its traders. WWBCP II was named a 2X Problem Pioneer Flagship Fund in July 2021.
Christina Juhasz, Chief Funding Officer of WAM, stated, “We’re deeply grateful to our LPs for his or her help and desirous to proceed our journey as gender lens traders for monetary inclusion. This new fund permits us to be much more intentional in main gender-inclusive progress with our portfolio corporations, deepening outreach to financially underserved ladies and female-identifying prospects and growing employment and management alternatives for them – all of which is according to attaining enticing monetary returns for our LPs.”
Mary Ellen Iskenderian, CEO of Ladies’s World Banking famous, “We’re particularly gratified to have been in a position to attain the triple-digit fund dimension – which remains to be fairly uncommon within the under-invested gender lens investing area – and we hope to attract further investor curiosity to the numerous progressive gender methods which might be poised for achievement.”
WWBCP II expands the gender-focused funding technique of WAM’s first fund with progressive options designed to boost its social and monetary returns. These options embrace a blended finance construction, which reinforces risk-adjusted returns for personal and institutional traders, and a devoted, grant-funded technical help facility to assist portfolio corporations obtain strategic, gender-inclusive progress targets. WWBCP II’s anchor traders, the European Union (“EU”) and the German Federal Ministry for Financial Cooperation and Improvement (“BMZ”) facilitated by the German improvement financial institution KfW, supplied crucial funding for each the primary loss tranche in addition to the technical help facility.
The Fund’s technique is to put money into progressive inclusive monetary service suppliers within the rising markets that prioritize attracting and serving a gender numerous buyer base and increasing gender variety inside their workforces to attain outperformance in progress and monetary return. By the technical help facility, the Fund gives data-driven market and organizational gender evaluation for every of the Fund’s portfolio corporations with a purpose to establish alternatives to amass and higher serve ladies and female-identifying prospects and to recruit, retain and advance ladies and female-identifying expertise of their workforces. These assessments will end in a Gender Motion Plan, to seize gender inclusive strategic progress alternatives for every portfolio firm. Gender disaggregated reporting will maintain the Fund and its portfolio corporations accountable to attaining gender inclusion targets.
WWBCP II has closed 5 investments thus far, together with an reasonably priced housing finance firm in India, a tech-enabled, small-hold agri-insurance dealer and advisor in Sub-Saharan Africa, a fintech group lender in Colombia, a peer-to-peer MSME lender in Indonesia, and a deposit-taking microfinance establishment in Uganda. Additional info relating to the portfolio out there on the WAM web site.
The Fund’s traders embrace, along with the EU and BMZ, the US Improvement Finance Company, the European Funding Financial institution, Japan Worldwide Cooperation Company, German improvement financial institution KfW, Soros Financial Improvement Fund, Sasakawa Peace Basis, MEDA, Dreilinden, Ceniarth and USAID, in addition to further affect traders, household places of work and high-net value people.
European Commissioner for Worldwide Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen stated, “Ladies’s financial empowerment is important for tackling inequalities in addition to for sustainable improvement and progress. Empowering ladies is a key precedence for the European Union. The EU is proud to work along with Ladies’s World Banking, main the best way on ladies’s monetary inclusion and gender lens investing.”
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About Ladies’s World Banking Asset Administration
Ladies’s World Banking Asset Administration, a subsidiary of Ladies’s World Banking, invests in progressive inclusive finance corporations within the rising markets, guiding them to seize the substantial market share of financially under-served ladies and the substantial expertise pool of ladies workers and leaders.
About Ladies’s World Banking
Ladies’s World Banking designs and invests in monetary options, establishments, and coverage environments in rising markets to create higher financial stability and prosperity for ladies, their households, and their communities. With a world attain of 62 companions in 35 international locations serving greater than 138 million ladies shoppers, Ladies’s World Banking drives affect by way of its scalable, market-driven options; gender lens non-public fairness fund; and management and variety packages. To be taught extra go to womensworldbanking.org.
For additional inquiry contact: Christina Juhasz, Chief Funding Officer, cj@womensworldbanking.org. ea@womensworldbanking.org
