Panel: Investing for Impact in Latin America, Sao Paulo, Saturday 15th February 2014

The Impact Investing Research Platform of the HSG Hub Sao Paulo invites for the Panel Investing for Impact in Latin America. The panel consists of leading industry players in Brazil, who will share their experiences in Impact Investing. Besides, the following topics will be discussed:

• There is limited consensus on what impact investing is, how it can benefit society and what is the appropriate tradeoff between financial and social and environmental returns
   
• For the existing funds there is no agreement over the best funding models, levels or return, investment priorities and methods to measure impact and thus many impact investment models have emerged from grant making NGOs to scale oriented PE/VC players
   
• This panel will discuss what is impact investing, how large it is in Latin America, who are the principle players and in which sectors do they focus, what are the different business models that exist today

Panelists
Daniel Izzo (Vox Capital)
Marcela Zingerevitz (MOV Investimentos)
Leonardo Letelier (SITAWI)
Hector Gomez - Moderator (International Finance Corp)

Date and Location
February 15th (Saturday) 10:00 until approx 14:00
Restaurante Ráscal – Itaim. Rua Leopoldo Couto de Magalhães, 831
Price 184R$ (incl. lunch)

Confirmation
Send an e-mail to rsvp@inseadbrazil.com.br

Our team from the HSG Hub Sao Paulo will be present and we are looking forward meeting you there.

Foro Latino Americano de Inversion de Impacto, Merida Mexico, 18th - 20th February 2014

The Latin American Impact Investment Forum (FLII) is the largest gathering of the region that seeks to strengthen the social entrepreneurship and impact investment ecosystem.

Date and Location:
February 18th - 20th, 2014
Hyatt Hotel in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

This year's FLII has a special focus to foster discussions on priority sectors for development: Housing Access, Sustainable agriculture, Financial services, and Education. In addition to this, collaboration and innovation will be central themes in the 3 days of panels, workshops and conferences.

The HSG Hub Sao Paulo @ FLII
On February 19th at 04:30pm, our Managing Director Angélica Rotondaro will be talking about Business Schools' opportunity to raise Social Innovators. It would be a pleasure to meet you there.

For more information visit (click logo):

Newsletter: Results of the Roundtables of the Conference

Dear reader, prezados leitores e prezadas leitoras,

We are glad to present our sixth newsletter on Impact Investing in Brazil. The aim of the newsletters is to further unite the Impact Investing community, to provide a channel to exchange ideas and simply to inspire.

After the last edition of the newsletter, which gave an overview of the entire second Impact Investing conference on “Enhancing Impact Investing in Brazil”, we would now like to focus on the outcomes of the key part of the conference – the roundtables on “Alternatives and Access to Funding”,”Social Housing” and “Education”.

The roundtables enabled the audience to interact directly with the panelists representing the perspectives of investors, entrepreneurs, accelerators and the academics from the University of St.Gallen, the Impact Investing Platform of the HSG Hub Sao Paulo and Insper. This unique setting proved to generate a very stimulating and fruitful discussion.

The goal of the roundtables was to give all participants the chance to interact directly and equally with the panelists as well as bringing all the key players of the community together. Additionally, new research questions were generated by feeling the pulse of the Impact Investing industry through the discussion of key challenges and potential solutions in order to enhance the industry.

To enable the participants to focus on their field of expertise and interest on the conference day, the roundtables were organized by sectors. The moderation of the discussion through an academic ensured a neutral conversation as well as the documentation and further use of the generated results.

The roundtable about “Alternatives and Access to Funding” focused on potential new frameworks that would allow classifying investments of social impact differently to traditional investments maximizing financial return. This also relates to the basic but challenging question of balancing business and social impact that should be defined first for the industry.

“Education” addressed the unclear division of responsibility of multiple governmental organizations (federal, state and municipal) and the difficult scalability of social impact projects in schools.

“Social Housing” identified the challenge of high investments and lack of innovation as key problems and argues for the leverage of best-practice projects and social urbanization.

The outlook will provide the readers with an idea of what to expect from the next newsletter, which will present the latest developments of the three-month period after the conference. We are looking forward to receiving any suggestions, insights and comments from you by the mid of November in order to be able to incorporate them. Additionally, we would like to invite you to stay updated through our Facebook page “Impact Investing in Brazil”.

We hope you enjoy reading our newsletter! You can find the full version here.

Thesis: Differences in Investment Behavior of traditional Investors and Impact Investors into Brazilian Biomass Projects

A five month internship in a consultancy for environmental services in Sao Paulo set the foundation of Estelle Tanner's Master thesis. In collaboration with the Impact Investing Platform of the HSG Hub Sao Paulo she conducted her thesis at the Chair for the Management of Renewable Energies at the University of St.Gallen.

Although Brazil has a high renewable energy share compared to the world average, there is potential for improvement. The growing Brazilian agroindustry, as well as a study from the International Energy Agency (IEA) promoting the production of bio-energy from residual biomass and energy crops, indicate potential for biomass projects in Brazil. However, so far this type of biomass projects has not gained momentum in Brazil. Assumed reasons for this phenomenon are (amongst others) the dominance of hydro-power plants, extensive oil resources and difficulties in financing biomass projects. This thesis suggests that Brazilian biomass projects could be a viable investment opportunity for impact investors seeking long-term sustainable investment opportunities, which have not only financial return but also measurable social and environmental impact.

Therefore, this thesis investigates the assumed differences in the investment decision making processes of traditional investors (PE, VC) and impact investors in emerging markets, via the example of Brazilian biomass projects. Through empirical research (based on 13 in-depth-interviews with six traditional and seven impact investors, all of whom are assessing a Brazilian biomass business plan) new insights are gained. The scope of this thesis does not allow for the deduction of general applicable theories, thus new insights for further research are created. In general, the investment decision-processes of traditional investors and impact investors do not differ significantly.

However, there are differences within the return and impact expectations. Although impact investing may propose one mean to foster biomass projects in Brazil, it is not the magic bullet accelerating the industry in general. Impact investing makes sense under certain circumstances. Dedication to create an intended and measurable social and or environmental impact in a less developed region, the inclusion of locals (e.g. better education, access to energy, creation of economic value), are just a few examples to point out what defines an impact investment.

For more information please also consider her presentation held at the 2nd Conference for Impact Investing, you can access it here.

Thesis: Portfolio Company Selection in Latin America

Our former Impact Investing Coordinator Fabian Oppenheimer just completed his master thesis on Portfolio Selection of Impact Investors. Here is a short summary of his work:

The paper analyses how Impact Investors select their portfolio companies in Latin America and what criteria are assessed in the process. The selection process model applied in Venture Capital has been adopted, since virtually no research on Impact Investing has been conducted to date. 

The findings reveal that Impact Investors originate and assess deals in a similar way to Venture Capitalists, but that some criteria are adjusted and others added in order to reflect the dual objective of Impact Investing;

Impact Investors can originate deals passively, but they prefer searching for social ventures proactively: personal contacts, access to networks and industry events are crucial in this context. 

Impact Investors considering an investment in Latin America search for integer, honest and reliable social entrepreneurs committed to social impact; eligible social ventures must be profitable with potential for further scalability; the product must have a social impact, i.e. create value for the individual consumer and for the wider community; market size and market growth are crucial external factors; and the deal features depend on the investor’s risk attitude and the prospects of a successful exit in both financial and social terms. 

Impact Investors are also willing to provide non-financial support prior to an investment, if a social venture shows high potential for achieving their dual objective.

If you are interested in the complete executive summary, please click here.

Newsletter: special edition about the conference - Enhancing Impact Investing in Brazil

We are glad to present our fifth newsletter on Impact Investing in Brazil. The aim of the newsletters is to further unite the Impact Investing community, to provide a channel to exchange ideas and simply to inspire.

In this edition, we will provide you an overview of the “Enhancing Impact Investing” conference which took place on August 28th in São Paulo. There are another two editions planned for this year, in which we will bring a more in-depth analysis of the conference outcomes, as well as an overview of the latest deals and research developed along 2013.

The conference goal was to discuss challenges and hurdles that need to be overcome in order to accelerate the development of the Impact Investing industry in Brazil. It also aimed at providing participants with a platform to network and learn about the different perspectives of investors, entrepreneurs, accelerators and academics.

This newsletter is divided into three parts reflecting the conference agenda.

The first one encompasses two very inspirational opening speeches about Impact Investing – one from Banco Palmas, a community bank located in the State of Ceará, and one about The Why, The What and The How on the need for Impact Investing.

Also the Evaluation Center for Impact Investing incubated by Insper and a set of outcomes of the University of St.Gallen Impact Investing Research Platform were presented. To close the first part, there was a panel discussion between family offices funds and accelerators with real cases from IT3Capital, Artemísia and Pipa.

The second part was dedicated to sector-related Impact Investing presentations, with the results of a HSG master thesis on Biomass for Brazil, and the outcomes of an impact measurement methodology in the area of education.

In the last part there were three thematic roundtables about the challenges and potential solutions in the sectors of “Education”, “Social Housing” and “Alternatives and Access to Funding” in which participants were empowered to share their ideas and ask questions directly to the top-class speakers.

The momentum surrounding Impact Investing in Brazil shall not be missed. Only to compare, the last conference in December 2012 brought together around 70 participants, while this last conference in August 2013 counted on around 200 like-minded participants.

We would like to thank our conference partners – Insper and the Sustainability Committee of the Swiss-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce– and the supporters: ICE, Endeavor Visao de Sucesso, and Artemisia. The conference success is the result of a very harmonic and integrated joint work.

We hope you enjoy reading our newsletter!

You can access the full newsletter here.

To receive future newsletters directly to your inbox, you can subscribe here.

Links to Conference Presentations

Dear reader, you can now access the presentations held on the 28th of August on the subject of our conference on Enhancing Impact Investing in Brazil. Please click on the links below to access the presentations.

Asier Ansorena - Opening Speech, Banco Palmas

Ernst von Kimakowitz - The why, how and what of Impact Investing

Angélica Rotondaro - Presentation of the HSG Hub Impact Investing Research Center

Sergio Lazzarini - Centro de investimento de impacto Insper

Dhaval Chadha - Presentation Pipa Accelerator

Renato Kijama - Presentation Artemisia Accelerator 

Luiza Camargo de Nascimento - Family fund IT3Capital

Naercio Menezes Filho - Avaliacao economica do ensino medio profissional no Brasil

Estelle Tanner - Impact Investing, a mean to foster biomass in Brazil?