International For-Profit Investments in Micro- finance Institutions Equity

In recent years international investors are increasing the focus on the social consequences of their investments along with its financial returns. The mi- crofinance sector, considered as an asset class is a relatively young concept but the microfinance industry is experiencing a tremendous growth and has a high poten- tial for the future. Today most social responsible investments in microfinance are performed through loans or fixed income structured finance vehicles. The possi- bilities to invest in the equity tranche of the industry are still scarce since the number of listed microfinance institutions is reduced and the private equity in- vestments are limited and difficult to reach for the majority of investors. In this document we present a study on the characteristics of the MFIs and we try to shed some light on this subsector of the equity assets universe that may become im- portant in the coming future.