15.09.2011 | 1 Billion Dollars for Microfinance
1 Billion Dollars for Microfinance
Symbiotics Group, the Geneva-based investment services company, reached the one billion dollar mark in micro and small enterprise financing last week. After six years of operations, this once pioneer company, with a mission to invest in the social economy and small enterprise development, has successfully fulfilled its aim, helping over a million low income households in emerging economies to gain access to capital and financial services, incidentally offering them the infrastructure and opportunity to positively impact their daily lives through their own work.
This outreach and impact is the result of over 40 staff based in four continents, working with more than 150 microfinance and SME finance institutions in 45 different countries. The team has originated 1022 transactions, primarily debt investments with an average maturity of 27 months. The investments have been made on behalf of over 25 different funds and institutional investors, ranging from multilateral or government agencies, to pension funds, specialized vehicles and fund managers across Europe and North America. Together, they have financed 408,892 micro and small enterprises active in trade, manufacturing or agriculture.
More recently, the company has been able to grow its proportion of local currency financing above 20% and increase the depth of its outreach by materially increasing its share of investments in Sub-Saharan Africa and the least developed economies. It has also setup a bond issuance platform for larger intermediaries and mainstream investors.
Roland Dominicé, Symbiotics CEO, comments: "Microfinance has been a rapidly growing and changing environment in the past decade; we are quite proud of having successfully reached this benchmark and remain at the forefront of innovation and quality of investments in this field. We will continue to pursue our mission and corporate culture as we further grow and evolve with the industry."
For more information, please contact:
Claire Dorey
+41 (0)22 338 15 00
claire.dorey@symbioticsgroup.com