Calvert Foundation Announces Capital Aggregation Investment Business

Bethesda, MD, May 3, 2017 (Newswire.com) - Calvert Foundation, one of the world’s leading financial institutions focused on building a more efficient impact marketplace by providing flexible capital at scale to a diversified, global portfolio of mission-driven organizations, today announced a new business line, Capital Aggregation. The new business line expands Calvert Foundation’s existing services to more actively aggregate and facilitate capital to meet the evolving needs of the communities they serve. The Capital Aggregation business pools capital from multiple institutional and accredited investors, in the form of syndications and participations in fixed income transactions, to enable investment at scale in mission-driven organizations.

Calvert Foundation will originate and structure each Capital Aggregation transaction and act as administrative agent, leveraging its unique reputation as a trusted partner to investors and mission-driven organizations alike. Calvert Foundation will target deals in the range of $10m-$50m and expects to participate in every transaction, ensuring an alignment of interest with investors. Over the past 24 months, Calvert Foundation has already identified approximately 50 institutional and accredited investors interested in placing capital in Calvert Foundation originated Capital Aggregation transactions, and the organization is actively seeking to expand this base.

Calvert Foundation has created its Capital Aggregation business to address growing inefficiencies in the impact investment marketplace. Growth-stage, scaled organizations seeking larger capital rounds face a complex, time-consuming process that typically requires raising funds from multiple capital sources, increasing transaction costs and timeframes. At the same time, institutional and accredited investors are increasingly challenged to find impact investments across impact sectors and geographies that meet diverse range of risk / return profiles for their fixed income portfolios. Capital Aggregation eases these challenges for both sides of the marketplace. 

“As both impact investors and impact markets have matured, we see a need for the facilitation of larger, broader flows of capital that can supplement our own investment appetite and are aligned with our investment objectives,” said Jennifer Pryce, President and Chief Executive Officer of Calvert Foundation. “Calvert Foundation is uniquely suited to catalyze capital flows to meet the growing capital needs of the global communities we serve. Our Capital Aggregation business essentially creates a one-stop solution by structuring and administering investable transactions for mission-driven organizations that ease the associated capital raising process by connecting them with a syndicate of investors who seek exposure to high-quality, risk-appropriate deals that generate social, environmental and financial returns.”

Capital Aggregation formalizes into a new business line investment expertise Calvert Foundation has acquired over its 22-year history, which includes acting in the role of lead lender and administrative agent on transactions. In the last year, Calvert Foundation has closed on five transactions, aggregating and / or administering over $70m. It anticipates closing 3-5 additional Capital Aggregation transactions this year.

Throughout its history, Calvert Foundation has been a trusted source of values-aligned flexible capital for mission-driven organizations. At the same time, investors and co-investors have come to rely on Calvert Foundation for developing and providing access to a robust pipeline of high impact and high quality deals that generate social, environmental and financial returns. To-date, Calvert Foundation has raised more than $1.4 billion of investor capital via its flagship Community Investment Note® and returned 100% of principal and interest. 

Capital Aggregation is an important next step to the organization’s fulfilling its mission of creating a more efficient impact marketplace to scale investment in mission-driven organizations.

Ms. Pryce continued: “We are encouraged by the exciting growth we see in interest in impact investing from financial institutions, foundations, family offices and other investors, but also see an increased focus on niche portfolio creation rather than in investments that meet market demand. We know that players active in fixed-income markets have the capacity to do enormous good, and we believe that by pooling investor interest and dollars, our Capital Aggregation business can accelerate capital flows to the communities we serve to maximize our collective impact.”

About Calvert Foundation
Calvert Foundation is one of the world’s leading financial institutions focused on building a more efficient impact marketplace by providing flexible capital at scale to a diversified, global portfolio of mission-driven organizations. Through its flagship Community Investment Note® which it offers directly to investors on its website and via brokerage accounts, and its Capital Aggregation business, Calvert Foundation enables individual and institutional investors to invest in a portfolio of more than 100 mission-driven organizations, enabling financing for 1000s of nonprofits, social enterprises and communities in-need worldwide. During Calvert Foundation’s 22-year history, it has raised more than $1.4 billion from 18,000 investors and returned 100% of principal and interest. Investor dollars finance community development, education, environmental sustainability, financial inclusion, health, housing, sustainable agriculture, small businesses and renewable energy. 

For investor inquiries:
Beth Bafford
800.248.0337, ext 6027
beth.bafford@calvertfoundation.org

For media inquiries:
Cindy Stoller
(917) 331-0418
cstoller@confluencepartners.com

Source: Calvert Foundation