Category: Articles for Others

Truth or dare – transparency by vanguard social investors reveals risks and returns in a maturing market

Karl H Richter3 Comments

A landmark study released today via the Government’s open data portal reveals for the first time historic performance of UK social investment activity.

eX Dataset1_by year

The total financial performance (comparing all capital draw downs with all capital, interest and fee payments) over the 12 year period was negative 9.25% (-0.77% annualised)*. Counterintuitively, this is remarkably good given that pricing of capital was driven by affordability and not risk adjusted. Moreover, most of these social investments were made after the investees had been refused finance from High Street institutions. They would therefore be classified as high risk deals.Read More »

Social Investing – from Hype to Impact?

Karl H Richter3 Comments

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Impact investment is blossoming. What started as a fad for idealists is gradually becoming a mainstream concept often discussed by fund management hotshots and company executives. The concept itself is certainly appealing. Investors are realising that they have the possibility to help solve some of the world’s most pressing social problems and make a profit at the same time.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the old debate of whether financial markets can become a force for social good has been rekindled. For all of the buzz around it… read more >

Much is happening in the UK and in other countries. This article focuses on the European context where the EU has set as a priority social entrepreneurship and social investment. This is building of a long tradition associated with the social economy. Steps are being taken to ease cross border social investment. Originally published by Philanthropy Impact Magazine: 6 – SUMMER / AUTUMN 2014, authored by Stephen J. Barnett, Beatriz Jambrina Canseco and Karl Richter (Euclid Network)

The Welfare State is dead – long live the Kinky State

Karl H RichterLeave a comment

Kingofnetherlands

I don’t mean the type of adulterous scooter socialism enjoyed by French President Francois Hollande – I mean an agile and nimble State that is deftly able to do more with less. Kinky like an inflection point in a trend line. Kinky as in ‘crinkled’ and ‘intertwined’ and ‘complex’ and ‘strikingly unconventional’. Kinky like talk about the rise of smart power in a multi-polar world – because this is the new practical reality, not because the laissez-faire types won the ideological debate about the size of the state. Quite the contrary, it’s dangerous to mistake coincidence for causality.

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Social investing : fixing capitalism with capitalism

Karl H Richter2 Comments

Capitalism – in its current form – has let us down. We have seen this truism manifest itself globally, from the disruptive protests of the “Occupy” movements to mainstream debates such as Capitalism in Crisis, the in-depth series that the Financial Times ran at the beginning of 2012.

#OccupyLSX camp outside London Stock Exchange/ St Paul’s Cathedral in 2011 (image digitally altered from original)

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The EU budget 2014-2020 and the Social Business Initiative

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Commissioned by E!Sharp as part of the series “How to spend the EU budget” and published 9 January 2012, orginal article here.
Photo: Spiegel online.

Lauri Wylie’s 1963 comedy sketch “Dinner for One” has become a cult classic across Europe and it is obligatory TV viewing every New Year’s Eve in Germany. A spoof version of it emerged this year and became an internet hit. It features Chancellor Merkel as Miss Sophie and President Sarkozy as the Butler who has to imitate Sophie’s imaginary friends through the course of a dinner party. The catchphrase of the sketch is provided by the Butler who asks repeatedly whether it will be “The same procedure as last year?”Read More »

Task force for a European Social Investment Facility

Karl H Richter1 Comment
Published 1 December 2011, www.alliancemagazine.org, orginal article here.

Fiscal consolidation within the European Union means that a stronger social economy is required to deliver where the state can no longer. More non-public capital must be attracted for this purpose via a stronger and better integrated social investment market across Europe. This needs a European wide enabling infrastructure that is sufficiently flexible to accommodate local requirements and contextual issues. For this reason, Euclid Network and FEBEA (Fédération Européenne de Finances et Banques Ethiques et Alternatives) assembled a task force of experienced social investment practitioners from across Europe to explore how the European Commission can most effectively use its limited financial resources to best support social investment across Europe.Read More »

European Social Investment Facility – to finance the social economy

Karl H RichterLeave a comment
Commissioned by E!Sharp, Brussels based Journal – 23 Oct 2011

Fiscal consolidation within the European Union means that a stronger social economy is required to underpin the creation of socio-economic prosperity where the state no longer has the resources to act.

More non-public capital must be attracted for this purpose via a better functioning social investment market, one that is integrated across Europe. For this reason, Euclid Network and FEBEA (Fédération Européenne de Finances et Banques Ethiques et Alternatives) assembled a task force of experienced European social investment practitioners to identify how the European Commission can most effectively use its limited financial resources for this purpose. Read More »