WestLB (B): Going with the flow

The payment processing industry in Europe had operated in largely the same way for decades. A standard system of financial processing and clearing ensured a steady profit pool for most of the players. However, the payments system in Europe was facing threats on a series of fronts, including changing regulation that shifted power away from some incumbents, lower prices, new competitors, and more demanding customers. One of the region’s large players, Swiss-based SIX Payment Services, needed to decide how to respond to these threats.

Evgenia Plotnikova, General Partner at Dawn Capital, discusses whether VCs should broaden or narrow their focus in years to come

Companies need to find a compelling growth strategy and can pursue several options. They can grow internally via organic means, they can grow throu...

In this study, we analyze three decades of return data from listed private equity (LPE) companies, focusing on the return averages and volatilitie...

Leaders at Absa knew that the company’s growth strategy depended on developing talent –enabling them to drive innovation and impact

Fatbergs and grease waste from industrial kitchens are hardly the most enticing topics for a business school case study. Yet ZhanaSolutions, the start-up examined in this impact investment due diligence case, is all about grease waste. At least, on the surface. When one dredges deeper, the case reveals a compelling story about how to embed impact into decision making. It illustrates the risk, return and impact relationship - specifically, the added-value that impact investors can bring by investing in companies that generate a clear measurable impact, even when the risk-return profile could lead traditional commercial investors who do not consider impact to underappreciate the business opportunity. The ZhanaSolutions case looks at due diligence in the impact investing context. The protagonist, José Lozano, is the Latin American managing director of the Geneva-based impact investor AlphaMundi Group (AMG), an impact first but very commercially minded impact investor that invests in Africa and Latin America. In the case, Lozano and his team have completed the due diligence and are deciding whether to present a positive recommendation to the AMG Investment Committee to invest in ZhanaSolutions, The start-up, headquartered in Bogotá, offers a novel leasing model for its grease removal G-Trap technology to industrial kitchens in Colombia. Students assume the role of Lozano and will need to balance impact and financial considerations as they make a recommendation. Through the case, students can experience a real impact investing due diligence, explore the layers of considerations needed to build a compelling investment case and simulate how best to present proposals to an investment committee. The case underscores the idea that investable opportunities can be found in even the most mundane places.

Forecasting Bitcoin’s returns continues to be a challenging endeavor for both scholars and practitioners. In this paper, we train a random forest m...

A flurry of venture capital activity presents investors with a challenge: how to distinguish genuine innovators from opportunistic players capitali...

Taiwan is undergoing a financial revolution, surging ahead in digital transformation, propelled by a convergence of global trends and local innovat...

In the second part of our conversation with Chris Douvos, he expands on how the emerging managers segment in venture capital has evolved since 2010...