SME V - CASF&ARF (IFC-600585)

Countries
  • Congo, Democratic Republic of
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Financial Institutions
  • International Finance Corporation (IFC)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Active
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
U
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Voting Date
Jul 27, 2016
Date when project documentation and funding is reviewed by the Board for consideration and approval. Some development banks will state a "board date" or "decision date." When funding approval is obtained, the legal documents are accepted and signed, the implementation phase begins.
Borrower
XSML
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Finance
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Advisory Services
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Project Cost (USD)
$ 1.65 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Bank Documents
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ IFC website

Updated in EWS Mar 5, 2018

Disclosed by Bank Feb 27, 2018

Contribute Information
Can you contribute information about this project?
Contact the EWS Team

Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

The Central Africa SME Ventures Project is to provide integrated technical assistance to SME Ventures funds - CASF/Prj #28784 and ARF/Prj #35343 - through the fund manager - XSML. XSML will be supported to upskill their capacity to add value to their SME portfolio as it grows out of DRC and CAR to 3 more FCS/IDA countries - Burundi, Congo Brazzaville and Uganda.

CASF is a vintage 2010 fund ($19.19m) with just under 90% of capital invested to 32 SME investees. With 29 in DRC and 3 in CAR, the investment period ended in November 2015 and XSML will begin harvesting the fund from this year forward. XSML will need technical assistance support in value addition to the Portfolio companies for continued performance and on track exits by end of the investment period in FY 2020.

ARF is a Vintage 2016 Fund targeting $50m to SMEs and XSML needs technical assistance support to focus on sourcing, due diligence as well as value add to ensure the investees remain on track for performance and exits. Leveraging on lessons learned from CASF, ARF will focus value add on technical expertise for competitiveness and upgrading of investees financial and management systems. In addition, the project will support XSML to develop its pipeline through risk capital training to SMEs, business planning and to achieve E&S and Governance compliance.

The program focus is at the following three levels:
1. Financial Intermediary - XSML: Supporting the fund manager capacity to add value to its investees, to enhance performance and exits of the Funds;

2. SMEs - pipeline and portfolio investees: Pipeline SMEs need to demonstrate their ability to utilize risk capital to realize investment opportunities and generate return for investors. SMEs will be guided on funds investment criteria for entry, what it means to be a performing portfolio company and the realities of planning an eventual exit of CASF or ARF.

3. Enabling Environment : to open-up targeted challenging environments to Private Equity industry in general and, specifically to facilitate a smooth roll out of XSML operations. This entails: i) supporting the development of a PE/risk capital conducive environment, including the drafting and enactment of a legal, regulatory framework; ii) contributing to the development of relevant communication channels to portray investments opportunities to Funds and other risk capital vehicles.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.

Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

No project contacts available at the time of disclosure

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF IFC

The Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) is the independent complaint mechanism and fact-finding body for people who believe they are likely to be, or have been, adversely affected by an IFC or MIGA- financed project. If you submit a complaint to the CAO, they may assist you in resolving a dispute with the company and/or investigate to assess whether the IFC is following its own policies and procedures for preventing harm to people or the environment. If you want to submit a complaint electronically, you can email the CAO at CAO@worldbankgroup.org. You can learn more about the CAO and how to file a complaint at http://www.cao-ombudsman.org/

How it works

How it works