Finnfund blog
Finnfund blog consists of articles by our experts and guest stars on various themes around development finance, developing countries and sustainable investing aiming to find solutions to global challenges.
Stakeholders’ voice – using technology to collect feedback directly from the key people
The world has now lived with the Covid-19 pandemic for over two years. The evidence shows that it has hit the least-developed countries the hardest. At the same time, climate change is increasingly affecting peoples’ daily lives. Again, those already in vulnerable positions are suffering the most. In this milieu, there is a need to understand […]
Read moreJune 6, 2022
Preparing for a successful exit: Sustainability should translate into a premium
A successful exit requires thorough understanding of the current trading of the investee and its future business prospects. Ideally, a new investor should bring in something new that the incumbent owners don’t possess. This can be experience on scaling-up similar businesses in other geographies, large financial or human resources, industry expertise, good brand or something […]
Read moreJune 1, 2022
Fast-growing agribusiness companies in Africa excel in resilience, innovation and harnessing technology to increase productivity
It’s been two years since Finnfund, FMO and IFC arranged the first ever African Cheetahs event, bringing together the “Cheetahs”, executives of Africa’s most promising, fast-growing agribusiness companies. So much has changed since then: we have all made our way through two years of challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic and these years have not only […]
Read moreMay 18, 2022
Listen to your stakeholders
In order to make good, smart decisions, we must have a thorough understanding of the changes in our operational environment and listen to our key people. This was the main idea when we started to work on our stakeholder survey. We wanted to know what our key people – such as our owners and other […]
Read moreMarch 7, 2022
SDG 5: A telecommunications operator’s best practices for promoting gender equality
Sustainable development means ending discrimination towards women and providing equal opportunities for education and employment. According to the experts, gender equality and women empowerment has been conclusively shown to stimulate economic growth, which is fundamental, especially in countries with higher unemployment rates and less economic opportunity. Founded in 2010, BCS is a wholesale telecommunications operator […]
Read moreFebruary 10, 2022
We are biodiversity
Biodiversity has risen to the current sustainability discussions alongside climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation. It is increasingly clear that biodiversity risks are material and relevant to businesses both in developing countries and in the developed world. In early 2021, The Economics of Biodiversity: The Das Gupta Review underlined our dependence on the natural […]
Read moreJanuary 12, 2022
Client protection in microfinancing is part of financial inclusion
Microcredit and microfinance refer to very small loans for individuals or micro-businesses. In some context, it refers to other services as well such as micro-insurance, micro-pensions, micro-leasing, and even micro-savings. More importantly, it is about providing access to formal financing and participation for people in need of money to set up or expand their businesses. […]
Read moreDecember 22, 2021
Learning to understand (and manage) climate risks
Floods, typhoons and tornados, forest fires, drought, and extreme heat. Extreme weather conditions have become part of our daily news. As the drastic effects of climate change become more evident, financiers, such as Finnfund, must learn to understand and live with the risks. Understanding the climate risks is particularly important because nearly all our portfolio […]
Read moreDecember 15, 2021
Even if you never stopped, it’s time for a restart
What a year it’s been – the global pandemic has not been easy for many – but, whilst my colleagues were stuck at working from home, I was fortunate enough to be expanding my network across the developing world through the MBA programme at Oxford’s Saïd Business School. With the world slowly opening up, it’s […]
Read moreNovember 24, 2021
CFO’s insight into Q3: Navigating through challenging times
The COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges in the global economy are not over yet. However, I am happy to see that at Finnfund we have been able to navigate through these challenging times. In Q3, our activities remained at high level: Since the beginning of the year 2021, Finnfund has made 22 new investment decisions, worth […]
Read moreNovember 12, 2021