Our Philosophy

Gray Ghost believes microfinance can be a profitable investment, yielding the return of principal and some positive return on the investment.

Our primary focus is assembling a portfolio of diverse investments that demonstrate how private investors with varying appetites for risk and liquidity, can find suitable instruments. As opposed to being philanthropic, research, or technical assistance vehicles, all Grey Ghost investments must offer a reasonable prospect of positive return.

Gray Ghost also believes that microfinance is not just another asset class, but first and foremost a poverty alleviation intervention. Microfinance can play — in concert with other interventions in areas such as health, education, civil society and market access — an important supporting role in helping families and communities around the world create more secure and rewarding lives for themselves and future generations.

It is not a panacea, and for some of the poorest populations, may not be the first or most important intervention. However, as a general proposition we believe that the poor — along with the middle class and wealthy — can benefit from access to an informed choice of well crafted financial services delivered with integrity and respect for the client.

Selection Criteria

Gray Ghost's investment choices reflect value judgments and assumptions about how best to focus its efforts within the landscape of global poverty alleviation. Because of the type of capital we work with — flexible, risk tolerant, informed — we often operate in the less tested areas of microfinance.

Our focus includes:

  • Increasing the equity base of the microfinance industry.
  • Allocating funds according to a geographic target influenced by the distribution of potential microfinance clients as well as the opportunities for remunerative investment.
  • Favoring, through our social value metric for the funds, microfinance institutions MFIs that target hard to reach populations as well as MFIs that operate at significant scale.
  • Favoring locally based managers, close to the MFIs, clients, local conditions and capital markets, working in collaboration with the sources of foreign capital in North America and Europe.