Lending Club starts trading on the NYSE at a high $24.75 per share | VentureBeat | Business | by Chris O'Brien. Updated 10:19 a.m. PT with comments from Lending Club’s chief operating officer. Lending Club this morning kicked off a parade of tech IPOs this week, with executives hitting the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange and then watching the stock price soar way above prices they had set. At around 10:41 a.m. Eastern the stock exceeded $25. The Financial Times pegged the company’s valuation at $8.9 billion after the IPO. “It was a positive vote of confidence from investors,” Lending Club chief operating officer Scott Sanborn tells VentureBeat. “But we expect to be measured over the long term.” The IPO is being closely watched because it was one of the first “sharing economy” companies to go public. As part of the IPO, the company set aside a pool of shares that could be purchased by lenders on the platform.
Indeed, there were early indications that investor interest was high. Lending Club has global ambitions, Sanborn tells us, but the company intends to focus on the US market for now. Now, PE firms eye diversified microfinance institutions. Client Insights: a Virtual Conference. A competitive, market-led approach to financial inclusion has increased the industry’s focus on putting the clients at the center of the business. But what does the focus on clients mean in practical terms for businesses?
In October 2012, CGAP and MicroSave hosted a virtual conference to discuss thoughts and experiences around the theme "Client Insights: How Can Providers Listen and Learn from Their Clients? ". Discussions explored ways in which organizations can listen and learn from their clients and the implications this has for decision-making, product design, delivery, branding, marketing and communication in the efforts to offer financial inclusion for all. The conference took place over two days and 10 sessions. The discussions highlighted four sets of recommendations for how financial service providers can listen and learn from their clients: Over 600 comments from 64 countries helped generate these four areas of recommendations. Pionline. Some of the world's largest pension funds are increasingly turning to emerging managers to generate alpha, particularly in alternative asset classes where more nimble players might have an edge. “There is renewed interest in emerging managers, stemming in general from investors looking for diversity among managers — not necessarily just on an outperformance level but also (in terms of) diversity in investment ideas, which may be coming from smaller firms,” said Andrew Junkin, managing director at investment consultant Wilshire Associates Inc. based in Denver.
Furthermore, major organizational changes at larger firms have led some investors to opt for smaller managers “with the view that they may be more nimble in certain areas of the market,” Mr. Junkin said. “Smaller managers can provide organizational stability, and more of them tend to fall into the (women and minority business enterprises) category.” The pool of emerging managers in alternative asset classes is also deepening. Luther Ragin, Jr.: Impact Investing: A Broad Market With Expanding Appeal.
The last five years have generated remarkable new interest in impact investing. New investors -- including diversified financial institutions, high-net-worth family offices, and pension funds -- are entering the field. New business models are being developed to create financially-sustainable social and environmental solutions. New investment vehicles, such as social impact bonds, are being piloted to test whether impact investment can support sectors previously reliant on grant and government funding. Even the term "impact investment" is new. Despite so much newness in the field, the practice of impact investing is decades old.
The Global Impact Investing Network was launched in 2009 to establish a more coherent industry that could increase the scale and effectiveness of impact investing. This diversity is an indispensable strength for the impact investing field. Recent enthusiasm must be translated into action for the field to fully realize its promise. No More Excuses: LPs See 2.5x Venture Fund Performance as a Target. Venture capital has been an underperforming asset class, but firms can no longer use the past decade’s lack of liquidity as an excuse for poor performance. This was one message from a panel of limited partners at the Venture Capital Investing Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. They said they had seen numerous partnerships distribute cash and some funds with 5x performance or better. “It’s achievable,” said Nicole Belytschko, director of private equity at C. M. Capital. The job of today’s LPs is to figure out who the next 5x performers will be, she said. Several LPs said they view a 2.5x return as a benchmark for venture funds.
During a wide-ranging conversation, one of the panel’s LPs claimed GP transparency has improved in the past several years. Several also noted they are more closely examining smaller funds and particularly the microcaps run by super angels. In addition they offered the following observations about what’s hot and what’s not: One thing that is not is cleantech. Optimizing Operations. Fund file: small is beautiful | beyondbrics | News and views on emerging markets from the Financial Times. World business, finance, and political news from the Financial Times. Private-Equity Firms Forced to Evolve. Business News & Financial News - The Wall Street Journal - Wsj.com.
Microfinance Gateway > Home. Microfinance and Microcredit Investment | Microcapital.org. China Microfinance - China Microfinance News.