While some press reports have played up failures in India, the heart of the industry remains strong

Diego Treminio leans back in his rocking chair and gestures to the expansive patio that looks out onto the Nicaraguan hills. Whenever he makes money he invests in one of three things – his house, his farm or his children’s education.

On all three scores he has done well. Besides the patio, he has added several rooms to his house. He has tripled the size of his farm to 65 acres. Several children have graduated from university.

This, he says, is because of help from MEDA – both its sesame project that operated for several years, and its microfinance program, MiCredito, of which Treminio is a client.

He can’t say enough good about MiCredito and the way affordable credit can transform a small farm. He knows there are other microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Nicaragua, but he wants nothing to do with them. “They abuse the producer,” he says bluntly, “and they charge higher interest.”

Read more from the January/February edition of Marketplace Magazine.

Each month, an impact investor discusses with the GIIN his or her motivations, impact investment strategy, and challenges faced in this growing industry. This month, we spoke to Gerhard Pries, President of Sarona Asset Management, a boutique investment firm that has focused on impact investing since its inception in 1953. Sarona recently launched Sarona Frontier Markets Fund I LP, one of the first impact investing fund of funds.

Read the full interview with Gerhard Pries >

Sarona Asset Management was recently featured in Venture Equity Latin America (May 15, 2010) By Dan Weil.

Read the article

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Waterloo, ON – Sarona Asset Management announced today that it has become a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI) and joined the Investors Council of the Global Impact Investment Network (GIIN).

Both the UN-PRI and the GIIN are industry-leading organizations working to bring social and environmental standards to the investment industry. The UN-PRI, set in motion barely five years ago by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, now has over 750 signatories, each of which is committed to following ever more rigorous standards in caring for the environment, benefitting people, and governing their business with integrity and transparency. Sarona is eager to not only follow such standards, but also to promote their acceptance throughout the investment industry.

The Global Impact Investment Network, birthed by the Rockefeller Foundation and launched at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in 2009, seeks to give both structure and story to the ever growing impact investment industry. Sarona is a natural fit for GIIN’s 30-member Investors Council. While many investment firms are only recently discovering an ability to create a positive social and environmental impact with their capital, Sarona has been an impact investment firm since its inception almost 60 years ago.

Sarona Asset Management is based in Waterloo, ON, and is a co-founder and or manager of a number of impact investment funds, including the Sarona and MicroVest groups of funds. Together, these funds have over $180 million in assets under management in frontier and emerging markets around the world.

For further information: Gerhard Pries, President, Sarona Asset Management Inc, gpries@saronafund.com, 1.519.883.7557

Waterloo, ON – Sarona Asset Management announced today that its Sarona Frontier Markets Fund 1 LP has made its first five investments in funds focusing on global microfinance, renewable energy in South Asia and small and medium sized enterprises (SME) in Mexico, Africa and India.

Its first two investments were in MicroVest II, LP, a fund that invests in microfinance institutions across the world supporting micro-entrepreneurs and IGNIA Fund I, LP, a fund that invests in SME focusing on the growing middle class in Mexico.  It then made an investment in AfricInvest Fund II, LLC, a private equity fund that invests in SME in Africa.  Finally, it invested in Renewable Energy Asia Fund, a fund that invests in run of the river hydro, wind, solar and bio-mass infrastructure projects in South Asia and SEAF India Agribusiness International Fund, a fund that invests in agribusiness SME in India.

“We believe these investments will demonstrate that investing in places like Africa and in sectors like microfinance, agriculture and renewable energy will show commercial investors that one can do well and do good,” said Gerhard Pries, President of Sarona. “We not only believe strongly in the financial case for SME in frontier markets, but also in the ability to achieve positive social and environmental impact through such investments.”

Sarona Asset Management is based in Waterloo, ON, and is a co-founder and or manager of a number of impact investment funds, including the Sarona and MicroVest groups of funds. Together, these funds have over $180 million in assets under management in frontier and emerging markets around the world.

For further information: Gerhard Pries, President, Sarona Asset Management: 1.519.883.7557

The NY Times published an interesting article showing developing countries have performed well in the past decade with basic services improving significantly for many of the world’s poor. More can be found by clicking this link.

A New York Times article demonstrates that several emerging markets have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past decade.  This is in line with our belief that growth in emerging and frontier markets will continue to out pace growth in developed markets in the foreseeable future.  The full article can be viewed online by clicking here.

Dora Dean of Guelph, Ontario has been hired to fill the position of executive assistant for Sarona Asset Management.  She begins on January 4th, 2010 after a 25 year career with Engel Canada in various roles including sales assistant, executive assistant and sales statistics and systems coordinator.

Gerhard traveled to Lethbridge and Calgary on December 16th and 17th to visit prospective investors of the Sarona Frontier Markets Fund 1 LP.