DAI confirms that it has acquired MicroVest Capital Management, one of the major lenders to “responsible” finance institutions—an acquisition that will “expand the capabilities of DAI’s investment management arm, DAI Capital.”
Established in 2003, MicroVest is a registered investment adviser that “allocates private investments to financial institutions that serve disadvantaged and underbanked enterprises in emerging markets.”
The firm has disbursed over $1 billion to some 200 financial institutions “across 60 countries to help create economic opportunities and facilitate financial inclusion.”
Currently active in over 100 countries, employee-owned DAI “works with governments, donors, corporations, and philanthropies to deliver integrated development solutions across technical disciplines including economic development, sustainable business, climate change and the environment, governance, gender, and health.”
The combination of DAI and MicroVest reflects the companies’ shared commitment to “mobilize private sector capital to create jobs, reduce poverty, and advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”
DAI President and CEO Jim Boomgard stated:
“This acquisition is about driving productive investment and economic growth in the places that need it most. Combining with MicroVest adds a rich vein of expertise to DAI’s existing asset management team, connects that combined team to a wider network of investors, and provides DAI a platform on which to build a world class, high-impact asset management business.”
MicroVest, DAI’s first acquisition in the asset management sector, will improve DAI Capital’s ability to mobilize and deploy private capital “in frontier and emerging markets.”
The transaction complements DAI’s acquisition of Magister Advisors, an investment advisor that’s mainly focused on the MENA region.
As part of DAI Capital, MicroVest will be retaining its management team and “continue to benefit from the leadership of MicroVest Founder, Gil Crawford.”
Crawford remarked:
“I am delighted to join forces with DAI for this next phase of MicroVest’s growth. In its 50 years of operation, DAI has found the right formula to balance a global perspective with local insights. DAI’s local networks and technical domain expertise represent an infusion of new, added value to MicroVest’s investors, portfolio companies, and stakeholders.”
DAI Board member Elizabeth Littlefield—ex- President and CEO of OPIC (now the Development Finance Corporation, or DFC)—welcomed the announcement.
Littlefield added:
“Promoting sustainable development on a scale that truly makes a difference to people and planet requires mobilizing vastly greater sums of private funds,” said Littlefield. “The marriage of DAI’s global development expertise and MicroVest’s investment acumen is the right intersection of the right networks at the right time.”
Established in 1970, DAI is an international development firm with corporate offices across five continents.
The firm takes on fundamental social and economic development problems “caused by inefficient markets, ineffective governance, and instability.”
DAI Capital is DAI’s asset management and investment advisory division, “dedicated to mobilizing private capital in frontier and emerging markets.” DAI Capital advances DAI’s mission by “channeling investment in these markets, which promotes economic growth, creates jobs, and reduces poverty.”
As noted in the update, MicroVest specializes in “allocating private debt capital to responsible microfinance and small and medium-sized enterprise finance institutions serving unbanked and underbanked microentrepreneurs and small businesses in emerging markets.”
As one of the first US-headquartered microfinance investors, MicroVest has established “a track record since 2003 of investing in institutions whose interests are aligned with the borrowers and communities they serve.”
MicroVest is a registered investment adviser, “Certified B Corporation, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of MicroVest General Partner Holding LLC, a Delaware statutory Public Benefit LLC whose purpose is to create scalable investment opportunities that support enterprising ventures and projects in underserved or underfinanced sectors and communities worldwide.”
MicroVest is “a Signatory of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) and The Operating Principles for Impact Management.”