On Tuesday 30 April at the London School of Economics and Political Science the Department of Finance organized a private equity event entitled 'Doing Well by Doing Good? Private Equity Investing in Emerging Markets'.
The theme of the event was private equity’s role in the transformation of the world economy. As Western economies battle to restructure their economies and re-launch growth, South-South investment flows have been steadily growing over the last decade. Vast and exciting investment opportunities are opening up in these global growth markets, but is it really true that best in class returns and socially transformational investments can go hand in hand?
The event was introduced by Dr Ulf Axelson (Abraaj Group Chair in Finance and Private Equity, ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳). Arif Naqvi (CEO and founder, Abraaj Group) gave a keynote speech entitled ‘Global Growth Markets: Transforming our world, our businesses, our communities’. The lecture was followed by a panel discussion led by Felda Hardymon (Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School and Senior Partner at Bessemer Venture Capital), entitled ‘Doing well by doing good? Private Equity Investing in Emerging Markets’. The panel featured the following leading practitioners: Tsega Gebreyses (Managing Partner, Satya Capital), Arif Naqvi (CEO and founder, Abraaj Capital; Abraaj Capital currently has around 10 billion of assets under management with offices all around the world, the biggest emerging markets private equity fund) and Diana Noble (CEO, CDC).
Dr. Axelson opened the event by thanking Abraaj Group for funding ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳’s private equity research program and helping to foster research in this relatively nascent investment area. Private equity sta