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French aid agency arm mulls more equity investments in Sri Lanka
Proparco is focusing investments in sectors like renewable energy, energy efficiency, and the agri-business value chain keeping the best environmental and social practices in mind, said Yatin Kundra, Senior Investment Officer of Proparco.
The organisation wants to promote inclusive growth and invests in development finance and micro finance institutions that have potential to contribute to employment generation, he told a forum.
“The companies we invest in, we like them to optimise impact on gender equality and social equality,” Kundra said.
Proparco offer loans and equity investments with the mix weighted towards the former now, with 88% being loans and 11% equity.
“In future we want to expand equity investments to 20%,” Kundra told the forum held by the Sri Lanka – France Business Council of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. “If you’re looking for growth capital, speak to me.”
Proparco loans are usually from US$10 million to $100 million.
“But the ticket size can go down to even $5 million if the project is right and can make an impact on the ground,” Kundra said. “It India we have made investments of $2 million.”
Most loans are for 5-20 years with five years being standard for agri-business and up to 20 years for infrastructure.
“We offer dollar, euro and local currency loans with swap options,” Kundra said. “Long term swaps are not easily available in Sri Lanka. The swaps tend to be a bit expensive but your exchange rate risk is taken care of.”
Equity investments by Propraco are usually $3-10 million and can be straight investments, convertible preference shares or debentures.
“We are very passive investors,” Kundra said. “We don’t take over a 20% stake in a company. We rather have one director on the board.”
Proparco also looks for a clear exit strategy when it invests either through an initial public offer or buy back by promoters with a time horizon for exit of 5-8 years.
“We’re very patient investors and not in a hurry to exit,” Kundra said. “We want to grow with the company and we want to help promoters to grow their business.”
(COLOMBO, March 23, 2017)