Impact Investing

There is a global shift in the way investors think about their investments; they want more accountability and are increasingly moving towards purpose-driven investment where they can make a positive impact through their assets.

Against this context, impact investing has emerged as an exciting opportunity for investors to better the world we live in. Positive change is crucial in creating a sustainable and inclusive economy.  And, when it comes to investing, ROI should drive sustainable returns and connect to the real economy.

Impact investing is not simply a trendy term or another form of screening process.  It is an intentional stance by institutional investors to ensure that the instruments they invest in have a positive return as well as a desired social, economic, or environmental outcome that is felt and seen by their end savers and their families.

This is particularly relevant in South Africa where many pension, provident and medical aid fund members continue to feel the effects of inadequate housing, poor education and health delivery, environmental disaster, crime, and many other serious issues.

Why RisCura

At RisCura, investing with care is a thread that weaves through everything we do. At the heart of all our services is a shared purpose to work towards the long-term good of our clients, society and the planet.

Creating a better, more successful South Africa is a shared responsibility. We believe that impact and development benefits should not only be measured and quantifiable, but be seen and felt by everyday South Africans. With over 20 years’ investment industry experience, we are taking action to seed the country’s impact industry and catalyse scalable impact products, allowing more institutional investment to flow into impact opportunities.  As such, the impact investing opportunities we seek to address are based on South Africa’s eight essential developmental themes; such as quality healthcare, education and jobs. We’re formally combining these opportunities and our investment expertise, skills and research and offering them as impact investment solutions.

RisCura’s Impact Fund Series

Experienced in establishing and managing technically intricate portfolios, RisCura’s Impact Fund Series enables us to impact a wide-range of impact investment themes. It also helps manage risk as it allows for a high level of diversification. The overall objective of is to offer institutional investors in South Africa access to a diversified portfolio of impact and developmental investments. The funds aim to deliver measurable positive impact and market-related returns by gaining exposure to a range of impact and/or development investment strategies, and themes that are most critical to South Africa’s development priorities as outlined in the NDP.

The first available fund is the RisCura Impact Debt Fund. Other impact funds will invest in property and equity, and all the funds will use both listed and unlisted vehicles.

Impact Measurement and Reporting

For our Impact Fund Series, we have developed a scorecard based on the Impact Management Project’s five dimensions (What, Who, How Much, Contribution and Risk.) We also look at the quality of the manager’s impact measurement and management process, and B-BBEE score. Our underlying fund managers will receive a score for dimension, which will contribute to an overall impact score.

RisCura has also developed an impact report for its institutional clients, enabling trustees to easily see how much of their portfolio is making a measurable impact. This is an industry first in this country.

The rating scale is based on South Africa’s development priorities as outlined in the NDP.

It’s your turn to take action. Contact us below to discover how you can make your money count.