Equity is a powerful tool to foster development. It can unlock significant value, as it enables capital-constrained companies to grow and become more efficient.
Equity can also be leveraged, allowing companies to raise additional debt funding. By providing long-term risk capital, offering managerial support and introducing best practices, equity investing can also help companies grow faster and become more productive, innovative and competitive.
Higher productivity at the company level translates into new or better employment and competitiveness for the economy, potentially through demonstration effects and reduced cost of inputs. Given the potential to boost development outcomes and make these investments more sustainable, development financial institutions play an active role in the equity market.
Ownership in a company, even a minority stake, amounts to a seat at the table. Through an equity investment, a multilateral development bank like IDB Invest can contribute technical and market expertise, improve financial management, strengthen environmental, social and governance standards and crowd in additional investors.
IDB Invest’s responsibilities to our own shareholders require us to be prudent and selective in deploying equity resources. Projects must be in line with IDB Invest’s strategic priorities and risk tolerance and have a reasonable potential to generate good returns. We also need to ensure that our involvement would add value to the company in question and that the investment would enhance sustainable development.
Capital Markets
By providing bridge loans, partial credit guarantees and other products, we strengthen companies’ ability to issue debt securities.
Read moreJulius leads the Equity and Mezzanine Team at IDB Invest, which he joined in 2020. He is responsible for developing and structuring the value proposition in IDB Invest direct equity and mezzanine investments. His responsibilities include developing the business strategy for these products and for the relationships with other private equity investors and development finance institutions (DFIs), either of which may become co-investors with IDB Invest. Before joining IDB Invest, he was a Managing Partner at Asesores Mesoamericanos, a strategy consulting and M&A boutique firm in San José, Costa Rica.
Earlier, he was a Founding Partner at Mesoamerica Investments, an investment bank with offices in San José, Costa Rica and Bogotá, Colombia, that focused on private equity and M&A. At CDC Group, a DFI owned by the UK government, in London, Julius worked in project finance, where he contributed to establishing the Group’s first venture capital fund in Central America. Julius began his career in finance as an Associate at JP Morgan’s London office.
For five years, he was a member of the Board of Directors of Fundes, an NGO specializing in the development of SMEs in Latin America. Julius earned a master´s degree in business administration (MBA) from INSEAD (France) and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Cambridge University (UK).
e-mail: juliusl@idbinvest.org
Phone: +1 (202) 374 0807