LPs Care About ESG in Emerging Markets: CDC, Pantheon, E&Y

Dec. 11, 2012 - PRLog -- Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment mandates are especially important in the emerging markets, where many business are growing rapidly and in need of systems for improving performance and mitigating risk. Increasingly, private equity firms active in emerging markets are adding ESG programs to their value-add toolkits – often at their LPs’ insistence.

“How ESG Creates Value in the Emerging Markets” is the first of a three-part thought leadership series featuring three experts in emerging markets private equity: Jeremy Cleaver, Portfolio Director of Africa at CDC Group, Dushy Sivanithy a Principal at Pantheon Ventures, and Sandile Hlophe, Africa Service Line Managing Partner for Transaction Advisory Services at Ernst & Young.

Topics discussed include: how ESG is being used as a lever of value creation and risk management in private equity deals, why poor investment performance is often correlated with poor ESG implementation, and what LP expectations are for ESG in emerging markets private equity. The three experts share real examples of deals in which strong ESG, or weak ESG, made a big difference in the success of the investment and, in some cases, in the well-being of the employees. The program concludes with an expert Q&A with Sandile Hlophe of Ernst & Young, the sponsor of this series.

View the full video interview here - http://www.privcap.com/programs/231-how-esg-creates-value...

Sandile Hlophe
Africa Service Line Managing Partner, Transaction Advisory Services
Ernst & Young
Sandile Hlophe is a chartered accountant (South Africa) and the Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) leader for Africa at Ernst & Young. He is a member of the Ernst & Young Africa Executive team and the EMEIA TAS Leadership team with extensive transaction advisory, mergers & acquisitions, project finance, debt advisory and financial restructuring experience. The TAS team advises capital markets leaders and c-suite executives on the capital agenda with regards to raising capital, investing capital, preserving capital and optimizing capital.
Sandile advises various private equity and investment holding firms and global companies seeking investment opportunities in high growth sectors across Africa.
Sandile’s corporate finance experience includes assignments in the financial services, rail, airline, healthcare, consumer, infrastructure development, energy, mining, retail, information & communications technology (ICT) sectors. His key focus areas include project finance, mergers & acquisitions, debt advisory and financial restructuring.
Sandile holds a Bachelor of Accountancy and Post Graduate Diploma in Accountancy, CA (South Africa).

Jeremy Cleaver
Portfolio Director
Africa, CDC Group
Jeremy joined CDC in 2011 and is a Portfolio Director responsible for fund-of-funds investments in Africa, as well as for assisting with the sourcing and execution of direct investment opportunities. Prior to joining CDC, he worked for the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as a private sector development specialist, responsible for managing the bank’s financing activities across the pacific region. Jeremy was also responsible for managing ADB’s relationship with the government of Vanuatu. Prior to moving into development finance, he worked as an investment banker for Macquarie Bank and Goldman Sachs, focusing on the financial services sector.

Dushy Sivanithy
Principal
Pantheon Ventures
Dushy Sivanithy, Principal (joined 2005, 9 years of private equity experience).
Dushy focuses on the evaluation, selection and monitoring of European investment opportunities and is a member of the European Investment Committee.
Dushy has specific responsibility for German and Central and Eastern European Primary Funds. Dushy also focuses on venture and cleantech funds in Europe.
Prior to joining Pantheon, Dushy worked for Hermes Private Equity as an analyst working on both fund and direct investments. Previously, he worked for Morgan Stanley as a research analyst in the investment banking division, primarily involved in the telecoms and media sectors.
Dushy received a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of London. Dushy is based in London.