AFRICA – The European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved an equity participation of up to US$25 million in the Blue Orchard InsuResilience Investment Equity Sub-Fund, which targets innovative companies operating in the insurance industry.
According to Private Equity News, the fund will make investments in key countries in Africa as well as Asia and Latin America.
The Fund will invest in both insurers that invest in and make use of technology and digital technology companies developing solutions for the insurance industry (so-called Insuretech).
Blue Orchard will invest growth equity in private companies and insurance companies, frequently with an important technology component, that provide data, tech-enabled services and products to manage the risks and impacts being amplified by climate change.
These services and products are needed to build out the necessary infrastructure so that vulnerable population and companies have the ability to protect themselves and take adaptation and resilience into account as part of their investment decisions.
The project will meet the EIB social and environmental standards. The Blue Orchard has become very experienced in environmental, social and governance procedures due its strong relationships with other development finance institutions.
The InsuResilience Investment Fund, formerly known as Climate Insurance Fund, is an initiative created by KfW, the German Development Bank, on behalf of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
The overall objective of the InsuResilience Investment Fund is to contribute to the adaptation to climate change by improving access to and the use of insurance in developing countries.
The specific objective of the fund is to reduce the vulnerability of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) as well as low-income households to extreme weather events.
The InsuResilience Investment Fund has been set up as a public-private-partnership.
It combines Private Debt and Private Equity investments in two separately investible Sub-Funds, open for private investors from 1 July 2017.
Technical assistance and premium support facilities complete the InsuResilience Investment Fund and are separately funded by BMZ.
The European Investment Bank is the European Union’s nonprofit long-term lending institution established in 1958 under the Treaty of Rome.
As a policy-driven bank whose shareholders are the member states of the EU, the EIB uses its financing operations to bring about European integration and social cohesion.
