It’s a pleasure to welcome back Andrew Kuper, who was a guest in the early days of the show.
Andy Kuper is of course the founder and CEO of Leapfrog, a global private equity firm focussed squarely on having a positive impact in fast growing economies.
The need to divert capital towards high impact investments has only grown in the wake of the covid 19 pandemic, and that means Leapfrog have been busy.
They’ve recently signed an unprecedented agreement with the Singaporean investment company, Temasek.
It’s more than a deal, it’s a partnership, that will see the state-owned investment company commit half a billion dollars to be deployed as the cornerstone investment for a range of Leapfrog’s future funds.
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On this episode…
We focussed the discussion on Temasek’s commitment to Leapfrog, what it means for the private equity firm to take on a major partner, and, what it means for the industry to see a deal of this size being signed.
My key takeaway this week…
“I think it reflects a new level of scale for the global impact investing industry in which we’ve been trying to pioneer since 2007.
And it represents, for the industry as a whole, the potential to really open the gates of the capital markets, and mobilise those trillions for purpose driven businesses.”
Good Future’s Good Books
By Abhijit Banerjee
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
By Bill Gates
By Amartya Sen
I try and think and read a lot about horizon two and horizon three, where are we going? Because Leapfrog’s ultimate goal is to reach 1 billion people with essential services by 2030. And understanding what the world is going to look like at that stage is incredibly important. So I read a diverse range of books and one would, for instance, be Bill Gates his book on climate, which is very practical and gives you insight into where we are headed as a world and the areas in which we can act to make change.
Another I would recommend is Abhijit Banerjee and Esther do Flo’s book on good economics for hard times in which they really subject some of the noble thinking of the development and business community to real tests as to what works and what doesn’t work. And increasingly, I think we can be more data driven, and more accountable in terms of what the ultimate effect on low income consumers and producers is of our work.
As you know, I wrote my PhD under Amartya Sen, the economist. And really his theory is about capability theory, what is it that you can do to build people’s capabilities such that they can make very different choices in life and you have different intergenerational effects for families. And so, and I guess the final book I would recommend is his book Development is Freedom, which really talks about the ultimate thing we are all trying to achieve as impact investors and as purpose driven businesses, which is to enable people to liberate themselves.
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