(written by: Joel)So what am I missing… oh yeah, the whole reason for coming to Cameroon, I suppose. So for those of you who aren’t up to speed, I’m out here with Michael Beckmann and Vijay Natarajan volunteering for an NGO. Our primary purpose while here is to help develop a pitch book for Laure to use to find a private equity partner. Generally speaking, microfinance helps individuals, and large banks tend to help multinational firms, but there aren’t a lot of credit options for small or medium sized businesses. In Cameroon now, there is only one private equity firm, which are companies that invest in small businesses, and is how some small and medium sized business gain capital in the US.
The three of us have been doing a ton of research trying to learn more about private equity and SMEs (small medium enterprise) in Africa. Now that we’re here, we’ve been spending a lot of time trying to set up meetings with key people here in Africa. We’ve had a couple supplementary phone interviews with PE (private equity) firms, but what is really getting us excited are meetings with local Cameroonians. So far we’ve been able to meet with the head of their investment promotion council, and two of the businesses that are looking for funding. I think our progress has been pretty good, but there’s still a lot to do, and we’ve only got three weeks left. Next week looks promising, but I’ll leave that until the next update.
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