EQUITY COMMITMENTS

Antares
Gray Ghost created and launched the Antares Fund in 2006 in order to make small, passive and short-term (12‐18 months) investments in MFI equity to encourage a deeper and more liquid secondary market in MFI equity shares and capture the illiquidity discount.

Balkans
The Balkans Fund provides opportunities to extend the success of microfinance in Eastern Europe through equity investments in growing MFIs.

Banex
Gray Ghost made a direct investment in Nicaraguan MFI, Banco Exito (BANEX) in 2008. BANEX is the 6th largest bank in Nicaragua, one of the most competitive microfinance markets in the world.

Bellwether
Along with Hivos Triodos Fonds and SV Prasad, Gray Ghost created and launched Bellwether in 2005 as the first private equity fund focused on the Indian microfinance market. The fund focuses on Tier-2 and start-up MFIs. Bellwether has expanded microfinance throughout the Indian geography and has played a lead role in creating investable MFIs in India today.

Catalyst /ASA International
Catalyst is an innovative structure that combines local management expertise drawn from ASA Bangladesh, with the mainstream capital markets expertise of Sequoia Capital based in Amsterdam. Like Bellwether, Catalyst moves the sourcing and oversight of investments out of the hands of western-based, foreign managers to locally based professionals, immersed in the target markets on a day-to-day basis and fully integrated into local networks.

Global Microfinance Equity Fund (GMEF)
Gray Ghost Ventures increases private investors’ access to microfinance investment vehicles. By supporting the spin-off of the Gray Ghost Microfinance team into an independent fund management entity, Grassroots Capital Management, and serving as anchor investor in that group’s initial fund -- GMEF -- Gray Ghost has served as a catalyst to help attract several substantial new investors in microfinance. Investment in GMEF was also made to address gaps in the microfinance funding landscape, such as the limited availability of equity funding for young, rapidly growing MFIs.

IFIF
IFIF builds on the experience of Caspian Advisors and their successful management of Bellwether to take advantage of the growing appetite for equity in the Indian microfinance sector.

Prospero
Prospero is designed to bring strong, regionally based equity management capabilities to bear on the many parts of Latin America currently lacking well-established, high-performing MFIs. Prospero will focus on start-up and early-stage MFIs.

DEBT COMMITMENTS

Blue Orchard Microfinance Securities I
Gray Ghost invested capital to enable the launch of the industry’s first tiered debt pool in July 2004. It saw the fund, managed by Blue Orchard Management, as a solid vehicle for socially responsible investors, with a portfolio of high-quality MFIs ranked among the best performers from the Blue Orchard network, debt investments, and a choice of five different tranches to suit risk and return appetites.

Centurion Fund
Centurion is a Moscow-based fund launched in 2006 to extend loans to and invest in smaller Russian MFIs, many of which are cooperatives or leasing companies. Centurion’s mission is to extend financial support beyond the foreign-sponsored MFIs that account for most microfinance activity in the country.

Deutsche Bank Global Commercial Microfinance Consortium (GCMC)
GCMC is an $80 million structured debt fund formed in late 2005 to bring public, private and institutional investors together to expand financial resources available to MFIs around the world. The GCMC created a ground-breaking structure which employed risk capital, including Gray Ghost’s participation in the equity tranche, to tailor a low-risk, low-return senior note suitable to foundations and private investors – many of whom invested in microfinance for the first time.

Emergency Liquidity Fund (ELF) LP Units
Gray Ghost provided subordinated debt to enable the ELF to close in Aug 2004. The ELF is an innovative structure which fills a critical gap in the financial infrastructure of microfinance: short-term liquidity support in response to systemic crises, such as natural disasters or political or financial crises. The perceived risk of MFIs is increased by the question of whether they would have access to lender-of-last resort facilities during a crisis. The ELF, operating in Latin America, provides this backstop, reducing the risk associated with MFI assets for all investors. ELF also provides disaster recovery and contingency planning support to eligible MFIs through a grant-funded companion facility, strengthening the MFIs own ability to respond to crises.

LocFund
LocFund is a $30 million fund formed in 2007 to extend local currency loans to microfinance institutions in Central and South America and the Caribbean. The inability to attract local currency funding has long been an intractable problem for the microfinance industry in the region, leading to asset/liability mismatches that put MFIs at risk. Gray Ghost was one of three sponsor investors who led the formation of LocFund in 2007 as the first vehicle to specifically address this funding gap. The sponsor investors used this project to bring a new fund manager to microfinance, Bolivian Investment Management (BIM), which is a unit of the La Paz, Bolivia-based Pan American Securities. LocFund has been very successful in supporting smaller MFIs, and has succeeded in managing currency risk effectively via portfolio diversification and floating interest rates.

Microvest LP Units
Gray Ghost made its initial commitment to MicroVest to enable the fund to meet its target for a first close in December 2003. MicroVest cultivates and engages private investors in the U.S., introducing them to microfinance through a professionally and conservatively managed portfolio.

Short -Term Liquidity Fund (STLF)
Gray Ghost conceived of the STLF as a complement to the ELF, providing short- term support in cases where liquidity pressure was institution specific, due to delays in funding, unanticipated growth or seasonal requirements, rather than systemic crises. The STLF, managed by Omtrix (manager of Antares and the ELF), fills a market gap providing high value to MFIs and premium returns combined with good liquidity for investors.

Solidus
Solidus is an investment fund managed by Cyrano Management that focuses on improving the capital structure of commercially oriented and rapidly growing MFIs in Latin America by providing long-term financing.