KENYA – Bamboo Capital Partners, the impact investing platform, and Palladium, the global impact advisory and management firm, have entered a long-term strategic partnership to deliver impact at scale, a joint press release from the two firms has stated.
Under the terms of the strategic partnership, Palladium has taken a minority stake in Bamboo.
Bamboo and Palladium have joined forces to achieve their shared objective of mobilising private sector investment at scale to significantly contribute toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
The strategic partnership combines Bamboo’s knowledge of institutional and private sector investors and its track record of impact investing in emerging markets, with Palladium’s global footprint, sector expertise, and a substantial pipeline of investible opportunities.
The initial investment will provide Bamboo with additional growth capital to increase its scale and accelerate the development of SDG500, a USD 500 million blended finance impact investment vehicle, and create new products in the future.
On its part, Palladium’s investment has the potential to grow over time.
The strategic partnership will see Bamboo become the asset management arm of Palladium, expanding the company’s offerings in addition to its capital advisory, program management, strategy, and logistics capabilities.
Under this arrangement, Palladium will be able to deploy more capital at a faster rate in a wider range of businesses to deliver both impact and financial returns for investors.
Palladium will also continue to drive the achievement of the SDGs with Palladium Impact Capital (formerly Enclude), its capital advisory business, which will operate independently from Bamboo.
Jean-Philippe de Schrevel, Founder and Managing Partner at Bamboo Capital Partners commented: “Since I founded Bamboo in 2007, our vision has always been that large-scale impact investing can solve many of the world’s problems and improve the lives of the most marginalized communities.
“Our pioneering work has paved the way for partnerships with UN agencies and NGOs, and the creation of our ground-breaking SDG500 initiative. This is just the beginning. We are now entering into this long-term strategic partnership with Palladium – a complementary, like-minded, and mission-aligned business – to fast track our shared objective of delivering impact at scale. The entire Bamboo team is looking forward to working with Palladium in the coming years as we execute upon our shared vision to achieve Agenda 2030, he added.
On his part, Christopher Hirst, Chief Executive Officer at Palladium said that “This deal comes at an historic time. In the last 6 months, COVID-19 has exacerbated the global challenges we already faced; challenges that have not gone away while the world’s attention has been focused on the pandemic. Palladium has been working to create positive impact for more than half a century, and never has our mission felt more urgent or in need of investment. What Bamboo and Palladium share is this sense of urgency. Coupling that urgency with our complementary capabilities and track records means we can meet these challenges with bolder, bigger, and more effective solutions”.
Since its inception, Bamboo has raised over $400m and invested in over 30 developing countries.
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