The Hindu : Business : IFMR to unlock value of low-income households

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Thursday, Jan 10, 2008
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IFMR to unlock value of low-income households

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: Three eminent brains have put their thoughts and experience together to form an independent private Trust to help unlock commercial value in low-income households.

Christened IFMR Trust, the objective of the newly-floated organisation is to create and manage funds that are invested in commercial enterprises, leveraging the competitive strengths of low-income households.

The Trust is the brainchild of an advisory board comprising N. Vaghul, Chairman of ICICI Bank, R. Chandrasekar, Dean (Academic Affairs) of the Institute of Financial Management and Research (IFMR), and Bindu Ananth, President of IFMR Trust.

Two-pronged strategy

The Trust will adopt a two-pronged strategy to reach out to remote households. For one, it will create channels to deliver financial and other services to far off remote rural locations. For another, it will rely on its private fund, Network Enterprises Fund, to provide fund support across supply-chain in multiple sectors.

The Trust will be headquartered in Chennai. It will also float an AMC (asset management company) to manage the fund. The AMC will be registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

According to Ms. Bindu Ananth, the Trust had already raised Rs. 50 crore through a set of private investors. “We are hoping to raise Rs. 600 crore by March 2009,” she said. It had already invested Rs. 30 crore in sectors such as handicraft, consumer products, drinking water, education, financial services and vocational training.

Armed with the analytical inputs from its affiliate, IFMR, and backed by its partnerships with some big corporates and NGOs (non-Government organisations), the Trust, she said, would be in a position to offer effective linkages that would help households in remote locations to realise their potential.

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