Will RMDC's public offering open doors for retail impact investing in Nepal... International impact investors should buy RMDC stocks

In a blog post, Anthony Bugg-Levine and Jed Emerson,the authors of Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making a Difference were quoted - " the sector (Impact investing ) has so far existed almost exclusively in the realms of "the ridiculously rich and the ludicrously large." Family offices, private clients, and pension funds are the ones with the large capital to put to work, perhaps more than the impact sector can even handle for a very long time.

So what about retail? While opening up the doorway to retail clients may not hold as much sway in terms of volume of investment capital, taking impact investing retail is important for more than sheer capital reasons.

As Bugg-Levine and Emerson say, "it is about creating a more integrated relationship between our assets and our values," and it's about transforming what society values and how we organize our resources to achieve these values. If impact investing remains confined to the upper echelons of society, then opportunities for transformation at other levels are limited. What we need are less boutique, innovative deals, and more products that can be accessed by a wider range of people. And with the recent Occupy Wall Street protests making it clear that our society is in desperate need to rebuild trust in our economy, it's very important that we as a sector do our part to aim for inclusivity.

I thought this blog post relates to the recent development that took place in the Impact investment space Nepal ....

1. "Rural Microfinance Development Center (RMDC), wholesale lender for microfinance institutions, will soon float its shares to the public, becoming first such company in the country to launch an initial public offering (IPO). As of now, the company has plans of releasing 1.56 million units of shares, with each stock priced at Rs 100."
   
2. "The company, which provides wholesale credit to more than 90 microfinance institutions, is currently backed by more than a dozen institutional investors including Nepal Rastra Bank, 13 commercial banks, five regional rural development banks, the Deposit and Credit Guarantee Corporation and Nirdhan Utthan Bank."
   
3. "The company, with a capital of Rs 320 million, provided credit of Rs 5.81 billion to 88 microfinance institutions located in 67 districts till last fiscal year ending mid-July, according to information posted on the company´s website. This amount has benefited 1.2 million poor and deprived families. So far, 100 percent of the loans issued by the company have been repaid, meaning the company has no non-performing loans."Source:
4. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) entered into a pact with Rural Microfinance Development Centre (RMDC) to purchase US$700,000 worth of shares of the latter.IFC has agreed to buy each share at a premium of Rs 180 over the face value of Rs 100. Once the shares are purchased, IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, will own 8.25 percent stake in the company, according to RMDC. SOurce

Clean Engine Motorcycle Taxi in Kathmandu?

DO you guys think this model will work in Kathmandu

If I had some money, I would have started a clean engine motorcycle taxi service in Kathmandu, Nepal. This venture will help create jobs, reduce carbon emissions and traffic congestion in the city of Kathmandu. The startup will have three revenue streams -taxi fares, advertisement on the motorcycles and drivers selling mobile phone prepaid airtime minutes. We will divide our target customers into two segments. First, responsible and frugal tourists who are looking for eco friendly, low-cost and safe mode of transportation for site seeing. Tour guide and basic foreign language training will be provided to our motorcycle drivers. Second target segment will be middleclass Nepalese. It might be possible due to social and cultural norms females wouldn’t be comfortable riding with a male motorcycle driver, to deal with this issue; we will hire female drivers. Our taxis will cater door to door service and will be centrally guided by a call center.