IMPACT INVESTMENTS
When we advise and invest, we want our work to have a positive effect on people’s lives.
We believe that the why comes before the what and the how.
Natus was born to support hard-working people with the strongest why. We advise and invest to make a profit in projects whose success also strengthens the communities around them.
We believe profit is what makes impact last. A profitable business stands on its own feet: it gives the people who work with it a living of their own and earns a return for its stakeholders.
We build long-term partnerships founded on trust. That trust is earned by keeping our word, a principle we live by and hold to, especially in tough times and challenging conditions.
“Transparency creates credibility, and credibility builds liquidity.”
How we invest
Protection.
Our loans and investments are secured by the assets they finance. Each project is denominated in a single currency from start to finish, free of foreign exchange risk. Where payment depends on a counterparty, we require a guarantee.
Impact.
We invest where the return and a measurable benefit to the people involved come from the same activity, primarily in developing economies and sustainable industries.
Verification.
Before we rely on a claim, we check it and separate fact from opinion. We hold everything we state to that same standard, and we ask the same of those we work with.
Structure.
We invest as shareholders or as lenders, whichever the project requires, and we work alongside the owners on structuring, financing, and compliance.
- Agriculture
- Maritime
- Trade
- Energy
- Chemicals
- Credit
- and others
Current projects
Trade finance
One of our holdings finances food commodities on their way out of Latin America, with the cargo itself as security. The funds are released when the exporter collects the crop from the farmers, and repaid when the buyer settles on delivery.
More on trade finance
Farmers need to be paid at harvest, when the next planting has to be funded. The exporters who buy their crops are small and medium-sized enterprises, and banks seldom lend to them: they hold no land to pledge as collateral, and their balance sheets are too thin. Short of cash, the exporters buy less of the harvest and offer farmers less than the market price. With the working capital the holding advances, the exporters pay farmers the market price on collection. The farmers fund their next planting and bring more land into production the following season.
Shipping
We have an equity stake in an operator of multipurpose offshore vessels. Among other tasks, the vessels carry out maintenance and component replacement on renewable energy installations at sea.
More on shipping
One example is an offshore wind turbine in need of repair or a new component. It stops producing until the job is done, and it cannot be brought ashore. Technicians and parts must be taken out to it and kept alongside for as long as the work takes. The vessels carry them out and hold position until the turbine is turning again.
In preparation
We are preparing holdings in agriculture, chemicals, and lending, an automated trading algorithm, and others.
Talk to us
Impact
What our money has done in developing economies since .
- US$26.4m of harvests financed
- Approximately 1,800 smallholder farmers reached
- Paid 56 days sooner on every loan
- Approximately 10% above the local market price
- US$2.40m of additional income to producers / farmers
As at
Updated every quarter
Data from our internal records. Where an effect is estimated, it is derived from published studies of comparable financing programs applied to our own volumes.
