NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

(Reuters) – LeapFrog Investments, a private equity firm backed by George Soros and JP Morgan, said it has raised $400 million for socially responsible investments in Asia and Africa – the largest ever for a fund specialising in low-income emerging market financial services.

The fund, LeapFrog’s second such fund, was three times the size of first raised and was oversubscribed, underscoring the increasing popularity of so-called “impact investing”.

Investors include Australian superannuation funds, American International Group, Europe’s second-biggest insurer AXA and Swiss Re.

“Here you have these institutions seeing that there is an enormous opportunity in the emerging consumer – people who have yet to enter the middle class, and that’s a big deal,” said Andrew Kuper, LeapFrog’s Sydney-based chief executive.