If you’ve ever considered investing for impact and decided against it, chances are the reason for that decision came down to one nagging question: Can companies with social or environmental missions produce competitive financial returns?
A lack of information about the performance of impact investments causes many investors who might otherwise be interested in both making money and generating a positive social or environmental outcome to stay on the sidelines. However, we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the information void.
Over the past few years, a growing body of evidence regarding the financial performance of impact investments has emerged; now The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) has released a report that compiles and summarizes what we know so far. The report synthesizes findings from more than a dozen studies—from The Wharton Social Impact Initiative, McKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group and others—on fund performance in the three most commonly used asset classes in impact investing: private equity, private debt and real assets (infrastructure, real estate and timber).
The main takeaway?
“For impact investors who are looking to achieve a market rate of return, the research increasingly shows that competitive returns are certainly possible,” says Abhilash Mudaliar, the GIIN’s research director. Like conventional investments, he adds, impact investment returns can vary substantially, meaning manager selection is equally as important for impact and conventional investing.
For example, an ongoing study done by the investment consultant Cambridge Associates (in partnership with the GIIN) is tracking the returns of roughly 70 private equity impact funds raised between 1998 and 2014. As of March 31, the top 5% had achieved an internal rate of return (IRR) of 22.1% or higher since inception and the bottom 5% had achieved an IRR of -15.4% or lower since inception, a range similar to that seen in conventional investing.
“The quality of the returns is really going to depend on the quality of the professional making the investments,” says Bob Goldstein, CEO of Sonen Capital, a San Francisco-based impact specialist. “If an investor has a fund that doesn’t do well in the traditional space, they chalk it up to skill. It’s no different in our world.”
While impact market research is still in its early stages, preliminary findings suggest that financial services, such as microfinance, and investments in timber show promise as particularly strong impact performers.
Timber might not be the first sector to come to mind when considering investing for impact (or investing in general), but Mudaliar says the strong performance among timber impact funds makes sense because it’s one of the areas where taking into account impact considerations can also directly improve a company’s bottom line, because the two are intricately linked.
As of June 30, 2016, impact timber funds raised between 1997 and 2014 had an internal rate of return ranging from 1.2% to 17% since inception, according to another study by Cambridge and the GIIN. This is compared to conventional timber funds raised over the same time period, which had a range of IRRs between -0.7% and 11%.
Of course, not all impact investors seek market rates of return. Some intentionally target below-market returns given the nature of their strategies. These so-called concessionary impact investments can be a sustainable funding source for organizations historically reliant solely on grant funding.
For those who do want to be assured of market-rate returns, the studies highlighted in the GIIN report really just mark the beginning. The impact investment industry’s youth (it officially turned 10 this year) and a growing number of new entrants without much of a track record means the scope and depth of the research is still limited.
“We still need more information,” Mudaliar says. “Impact investing is still a growing and evolving industry, and as it evolves we need more data not only on investment performance but on impact performance. We call on investors and other researchers to continue to dedicate efforts to build on this body of evidence.”
Here are a few more of the report’s highlights:
• A Wharton Social Impact Initiative study evaluated the performance of 32 private equity impact investing funds with $1.7 billion in assets and found gross internal rates of return of 9.2%.
• A McKinsey report on 48 exits from private equity impact funds in India found investments achieved a weighted average return of 11%.
• Symbiotics looked at 44 microfinance vehicles; the debt funds experienced a pooled average yield of 6.9%.
• An Impact Investing Australia report looked at financial performance data on 54 private debt investments in Australia and found a weighted average of gross returns of 7.9% per year since inception.
