About Us
Developing World Markets is an asset manager and investment bank dedicated to making socially positive investments in order to promote sustainable economic and social development on a global scale. We believe that the private sector and capital markets can and should be utilized to create positive economic and social change, and are often the most effective catalysts for doing so.
Microfinance as a Solution
DWM primarily invests in Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), which are economically sustainable financial organizations that provide small loans to low-income entrepreneurs, enabling them to create and sustain their own business. Microfinance accomplishes two goals: helping people escape poverty and contributing to the development of their country's economy through their businesses.
Our Challenge
Our challenge is to deliver financial products to microfinance institutions in an efficient and affordable (financially sustainable) manner and at the same time deliver an appropriate risk-adjusted return for our investors, while ultimately serving as a catalyst for development.
Sustainable Investing
Sustainability is a key requirement for any global economic solution – and it is particularly important when assisting the poor. In addition to investing in sustainable entities, we rely on the ability of the investments themselves to be sustainable by providing attractive market-rate returns to the socially motivated investors who are our clients. The combination of financial returns to our investors and social returns that we seek from our investments is our double bottom line.
History
Until DWM began its financial advisory and structuring work in 2003, microfinance and other socially motivated enterprises in the developing world had little or no access to the capital markets. The primary sources of term capital were philanthropic or governmental.
Our initial experience in microfinance, as philanthropists and active board members of microfinance institutions, helped us appreciate these financing challenges from the inside.
In turning Developing World Markets into a socially oriented investment bank, we combined our philanthropic experience with many years of emerging markets investment banking, both in the field and on Wall Street. In engineering the world's first cross-border securitization of loans to microfinance institutions, we combined our experience on Wall Street, in emerging markets, and in microfinance to create a financing vehicle that uses the techniques and structure of the market while providing vitally needed capital for sustainable poverty alleviation.
DWM's first asset management contract, starting in 1994, was as the outside fund manager for the LHO Global Markets Fund, a Connecticut-based emerging markets hedge fund. In addition, we provided emerging markets consulting to CapMAC, MBIA, and, through LHO, to Brinson Partners, Inc. and UBS Brinson. In 1998, DWM established the first emerging markets IPO fund, DWM I Fund, LP and from then through the end of 2007 invested over $150 million in 20 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Middle East, participating in around 350 Initial Public Offerings on local stock exchanges. Many of these issuers were family-owned or sponsored by nonprofit organizations such as Chinese universities and had issue sizes ranging from $3 million to $20 million – very similar to the microfinance institutions we work with today.
The Developing World Markets group consists of a number of companies:
- DWM Asset Management – Our investment advisor
- DWM Finance – Our FINRA-regulated broker dealer
- Developing World Finance – Our holding company for principal investments
- DWM Securitizations – Our securitization arm