Please tell us about yourself. What does a Senior Investment Officer at DAI Asset Management do? What regions do you cover?
An investment officer manages the entire investment process. This ranges from evaluating whether a RFI meets our deal and impact criteria, managing the investment approval and negotiating and closing the transaction. I also monitor and manage the RFIs in my portfolio. For me, this is primarily RFIs in South and Central Asia.
How did you get involved in impact investing?
My first job in impact investing was with DAI-AM (back when we were called MicroVest) when I joined straight out of grad school more than 15 years ago! I took a break in between to help build an investment banking franchise in Sri Lanka, where I am from. I have come full circle and re-joined DAI-AM in 2022.
What are trends you’re seeing in terms of the demand for responsible credit in your region?
MSMEs in the region continue to have a strong demand for credit that most players in the financial sector are ill equipped to fulfill. Demand for credit is supported by the positive macroeconomic factors in the region. In fact, Emerging and Developing Asia saw GDP growth of 5.4% in 2023, compared with global growth rates of 3.1% based on IMF’s World Economic Outlook (Jan, 2024). RFIs in the region are increasingly leveraging technology solutions to deliver better, cheaper and faster credit solutions to their clients. This is especially true in India, where RFIs are leveraging the data and payments technology that is part of India Stack. Some of the RFIs in our portfolio have used this data to develop credit scoring models that evaluate financially excluded MSMEs – with no credit history and no collateral. These models allow an RFI to provide faster and cheaper loans to MSMEs.
The other trend I’m seeing is that RFIs are also becoming more focused on monitoring and measuring how they impact their clients. There is still a lot left to do in terms of developing systems and collecting data, but the last few years have seen significant steps forward!
Microfinance has done much to catalyze financial inclusion for the underbanked worldwide, but not all of the impact is always positive. How does your team ensure that the institutions you’re investing in are operating responsibly and ethically?
It’s a combination of understanding the culture of the institution and ensuring they have the systems in place to operate responsibly. We spend time with individuals across the organization – from board members, to the senior management team to branch managers, risk, loan officers and operations – to get a sense of their motivations for working with the institution. Do they have a sense of purpose? However, the main focus during a due diligence is to understand and verify the systems and processes the institution has in place. What is the process for determining lending rates – is it systematized and fair? Does the collection process incorporate client protection principles? How do collections work on the ground? Is the collections team well trained? Does the loan underwriting and monitoring process ensure that loans are provided for productive purposes?
If Microfinance Investment Vehicles (MIVs) like DAI-AM were to achieve their social impact purpose, what would we be seeing?
When I start working at DAI-AM in 2008, microfinance was not considered an investible asset class. Most of the microfinance institutions in our portfolio were not able to attract much funding from their local banks or mainstream investors. Instead, they were largely funded by institutions like DAI-AM. However, the successful track record of MIVs over the last 15 years has
changed this and microfinance institutions are considered much more investible. Many of the microfinance institutions in our portfolio are able to fulfill at least part of their funding requirements from their local banks. Some MFIs have even been able to attract capital from investors outside the impact investing space. So, in many ways, MIVs have made huge strides in demonstrating that the bottom of the pyramid is a solid investment.
However, there is more left to do in the financial inclusion space. MFIs are still not able to fulfill all of their funding needs from local investors. In addition, although the microfinance model is considered proven in many (but not all) markets, financial institutions that have built business models to finance small SMEs, suburban/rural schools, farmers and marginalized communities still find it difficult to attract financing. I believe his is where the support of institutions like DAI-AM can support financial inclusion.
What has been your most memorable investment to date?
One of the first investments I worked on was a loan to a small microfinance institution in Georgia sometime in 2010. At the time, it was headquartered in a converted residential space in one of Georgia’s secondary cities. It was a relatively small institution with a loan portfolio of $15m and around 10K clients. However, the passion and systematic approach of the management team (who were also the main shareholders) really stood out. A few years later, DAI-AM renewed our loan to them and I went to see them again. By this time, their portfolio and clients had doubled. Shortly after I renewed this loan, I left DAI-AM to return to Sri Lanka. More than a decade later, when I returned to DAI-AM, I found that we still had a relationship with this institution in Georgia and I was able to visit them. Their portfolio had now grown to $400m and they were serving more than a 120K clients. They had moved their headquarters to an office block in the capital, Tbilisi, and were in the process of transforming into a bank with the intention of offering their clients a full suite of financial products and services. Although the shareholders were largely the same, the management team was now completely different. As I sat through the management presentation, I was struck by the fact that 10 years later, meeting a different management team in a different city, the culture of this institution remained unchanged – they were still so passionate about their mission and they were still extremely structured and thoughtful in their approach.
What advice would you give someone who was interesting in getting into impact investing?
My first piece of advice would be to travel! Learn about the joys and challenges people in other parts of the world, especially in the developing world, experience. The second is to develop your analytical skills – fundamentally, this is an investment business and our investment capabilities have to be second to none. And the last piece is that you have to enjoy problem solving. We invest in a number of emerging and frontier markets across the world. This means we have to understand and navigate different regulatory frameworks, accounting standards, cultural contexts, communication styles, the list goes on. Every transaction will have its own issues that you’ll need to work with the team to solve. So you have to enjoy it.
Disclaimer
The information contained here has been provided by DAI Asset Management, LLC (“DAI-AM”) and no representation or warranty, expressed or implied is made by DAI-AM as to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained herein. Specific portfolio or pipeline companies discussed are for educational purposes only and do not represent all of the portfolio holdings and it should not be assumed that investments in the portfolio or pipeline company identified and discussed were or will be profitable. The companies profiled were selected based on their unique uses of technology in the context of social impact, with no reference to amount of profits or losses, realized or unrealized. The information presented on this page is for informational purposes only and is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any DAI-AM product (the “Funds”), and nothing herein should be construed as such. Any such offer or solicitation will be made only by means of delivery of a definitive private offering memorandum which contains a description of the significant risks involved in such an investment. Prospective investors should request a copy of the relevant Memorandum and review all offering materials carefully prior to making an investment.