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Copyright © 2015 by Keith Allman and Ximena Escobar de Nogales. All rights reserved.
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ISBN 978-1-118-84864-7 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-119-00982-5 (ePDF)
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Lebanon is a beautiful country, with picture-perfect coastlines, lively cities, and, unfortunately, abject poverty in many regions. It was there, in Beirut, that my venture into impact investing began. I was conducting a pro-bono workshop on credit risk, for local microfinance analysts that were supported by the charity Relief International. On the Israeli border towns I took my first onsite visits to clients who received loans and observed how they utilized the funding to operate and expand their businesses. I was truly impressed with the effect the funding had, as I was able to see real businesses in expansion.
At that time in my career, I had just left banking at Citigroup and was still primarily engaged in private-sector finance. I thought critically about that trip, though, and questioned whether I should make impact investing my full-time effort. I hesitated because of prior experience with nonprofit entities that operated very inefficiently. I also struggled with finding clarity on whether my experience and skill set were best utilized in existing impact investing organizations. For years, I maintained my private-sector focus, but furthered my work with Relief International, consulting on microfinance capital market's issuances, and eventually joining its board of directors.
I persisted with traditional finance and combined my prior securitization experience with early-stage company analysis to work on venture debt transactions. As I learned more about venture company drivers and private equity fund operations, I couldn't get the thought of impact investing out of my head. And as fate would have it, right around that time a former Citigroup colleague informed me about a new private equity fund that had spun off of a large commercial microfinance debt investor. The Oasis Fund, managed by Bamboo Finance, was created to invest for profit, in early-stage, private companies that also had significant social impact. When I researched its investment criteria and the impact it sought, I was enthralled.
