The Portico Podcast

EXPLORE

Society & Culture

© 2024 PodJoint

https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts221/v4/b9/af/e1/b9afe12e-5786-5b83-d8d2-306e417acabd/mza_9556014833847767474.jpg/600x600bb.jpg

The Portico Podcast

Portico Advisers, LLC

23 episodes

2 months ago

In this edition, I speak with Amee Parbhoo, Managing Partner of Accion Venture Lab, a leading global seed-stage investor in inclusive fintech startups. Accion Venture Lab is part of Accion, the pioneering nonprofit that has been investing in financial inclusion for the last six decades. I was excited to speak with Amee because she’s on the front lines of identifying technologies that expand access to capital and financial services. In addition to getting an update on the fintech landscape, ...

Show more...

Entrepreneurship

All content for The Portico Podcast is the property of Portico Advisers, LLC and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

In this edition, I speak with Amee Parbhoo, Managing Partner of Accion Venture Lab, a leading global seed-stage investor in inclusive fintech startups. Accion Venture Lab is part of Accion, the pioneering nonprofit that has been investing in financial inclusion for the last six decades. I was excited to speak with Amee because she’s on the front lines of identifying technologies that expand access to capital and financial services. In addition to getting an update on the fintech landscape, ...

Show more...

Entrepreneurship

Episodes (20/23)

The Portico Podcast

Accion Venture Lab's Amee Parbhoo on Early-stage Fintech

In this edition, I speak with Amee Parbhoo, Managing Partner of Accion Venture Lab, a leading global seed-stage investor in inclusive fintech startups. Accion Venture Lab is part of Accion, the pioneering nonprofit that has been investing in financial inclusion for the last six decades. I was excited to speak with Amee because she’s on the front lines of identifying technologies that expand access to capital and financial services. In addition to getting an update on the fintech landscape, ...

2 years ago

40 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Deals! with FT Corporate Finance & Deals Editor Arash Massoudi

In this edition, I speak with Arash Massoudi, Corporate Finance and Deals editor with the Financial Times in London, and also the co-creator of the FT’s must-read newsletter on deal-making: Due Diligence. I wanted to bring Arash on to get a sense of how the world’s most voracious deal-makers are viewing the global landscape: who wins and loses in a world of rising rates, deglobalization, and climate concerns. I also wanted to chat with Arash about some of the phenomenal scoops he’s generate...

2 years ago

45 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Can Crypto Solve the $4 Trillion SME Financing Gap?

I was recently invited to give a lightning talk on a topic that’s been capturing much of my mindspace of late: whether crypto can be a better technology for capital formation than legacy options, such as banks, capital markets, and non-bank financial intermediaries. I’ve spent most of my adult life working on the problem of access to capital in the so-called ‘emerging’ and ‘developing’ economies. So, I focused my presentation on the $4 trillion financing gap besetting small and me...

2 years ago

17 minutes

The Portico Podcast

A Brief Update from Mike

What's going on? Why haven't I received a new episode?

2 years ago

2 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Aleem Remtula on Investing in Refugees & Displaced Communities

In today’s episode, I speak with Aleem Remtula, a Partner on the private equity team at Developing World Markets. DWM is an impact investing firm that has invested debt and equity in over 200 companies across 70 countries over the last two decades. While this experience provides a broad canvas for discussion topics, the focus of my conversation with Aleem is DWM’s investments amongst refugees and displaced communities — a population that now exceeds 100 million people worldwide. I’m passionat...

3 years ago

55 minutes

The Portico Podcast

The Four Dynamics Shaping Global Private Markets

What are the most important dynamics shaping the global private markets industry today? I would highlight four: Primary fundraising is extremely challenging Consolidation is transforming the strategic landscape The difficult macro environment is necessitating novel liquidity solutions Crypto is emerging as an institutional asset classThese four dynamics present urgent and existential risks to fund managers, and they demand immediate action. This episode shares the Portico ...

3 years ago

15 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Ben Fanger on Distressed Debt in China

In today’s episode I speak with Ben Fanger, the Managing Partner and Founder of ShoreVest Partners, an investment firm that specializes in Chinese distressed debt and opportunistic credit. Ben is a pioneer in China’s distressed debt markets, having worked on the country’s first non-performing loan (“NPL”), as well as the first foreign-invested NPL deal 20 years ago. Since then, he has managed roughly $2 billion in Chinese distressed debt and special situations investments — and as you’l...

3 years ago

1 hour 2 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Howard French on "Born in Blackness"

In today’s episode, Mike Casey interviews Howard French, the author of the urgent and essential book Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War. It is, simply, one of the most important books I’ve read. I encourage you to read it and wrestle with its implications. Howard is a professor of journalism at Columbia University and a former New York Times bureau chief for the Caribbean and Central America, West and Central Afri...

3 years ago

51 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Nnennia Ejebe on the Art of Control Deals in Africa

In today’s episode I speak with Nnennia Ejebe, a Partner with Adenia who is based in the firm’s office in Accra, Ghana. Adenia has been investing across Africa since 2002, and it is a pioneer of control deals in mid-market African companies. Nnennia provides an amazing overview of private equity investing in Africa, not only of the compelling macro and micro trends that are fostering a richer investable market, but also the variety of benefits that percolate down from the pursuit of a c...

3 years ago

42 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Karim Hussein on Egypt's Vibrant Venture Landscape

I’m really excited to share today’s episode, which features an interview with Karim Hussein, a Managing Partner of Algebra Ventures, Egypt’s leading institutional-quality venture capital firm. I was thrilled to speak with Karim for several reasons. First, I find Egypt to be one of the most captivating countries in the world, not only because of its rich history, but also because of its energy and potential. It’s the largest market in the Arab world, with a population of 100 millio...

3 years ago

46 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Gopal Jain on India’s Transformation

In today’s episode I speak with Gopal Jain, co-founder and Managing Partner of Gaja Capital, one of the leading private equity firms in India. It was a real pleasure to speak with Gopal because he’s lived through the boom-and-bust cycles within India’s private equity industry, so he’s able to place today’s environment in context, and impart some of the hard-earned lessons he’s gleaned over the last two decades. Gopal and I cover a lot of territory in this conversation, so I’ll spare you the...

3 years ago

43 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Tariq Fancy asks Is Sustainable Investing Dangerous?

This episode of the Portico Podcast features a conversation with Tariq Fancy — the former CIO for Sustainable Investing at the ~$10 trillion asset manager BlackRock. He’s also the author of the delightfully thought-provoking essay The Secret Diary of a ‘Sustainable Investor’. I reached out to Tariq after reading his essay because it raises some uncomfortable truths about the explosion of ESG-related products across public and private markets. While I agreed strongly with his writing abou...

4 years ago

45 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Simon Clark on The Key Man

This episode features an interview with Simon Clark, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal and the co-author of The Key Man — the summer’s must-read book about Arif Naqvi and the downfall of The Abraaj Group. Most listeners and followers of Portico will be familiar with the background of the Abraaj story. But if you’re not, I’d recommend that you go back and listen to Episode 8. But even more, I’d recommend you purchase a copy of The Key Man for yourself (USA, UK). It’s an absolutely riveting...

4 years ago

1 hour 3 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Greg Bowes on The State of EM Private Markets

An interview with Greg Bowes, Co-Founder and Managing Principal of Albright Capital ___ One of the questions I’ve often pondered since founding this business is: is emerging markets private equity dying? That literally was the name of the first study I published when I launched the company in 2016, and I — perhaps naively — thought that drawing attention to some of the industry’s problems might catalyze people to action. To put some figures on it, between 2010 and 2015, the number of g...

4 years ago

36 minutes

The Portico Podcast

The Abraaj Fiasco

I wanted to experiment with a different format for this episode and share my writings on the Abraaj fraud scandal as they were happening in real time a few years ago. Now, for those who don’t know Abraaj, it was one of the largest — and probably the flashiest — private equity firms dedicated to investing in emerging markets. It was spearheading a big push into impact investing and was marketing a $6B fund when it collapsed in insolvency under allegations of fraud. There are a few reasons why ...

4 years ago

18 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Viktor Shvets on The Great Rupture

In this episode of the Portico Podcast I speak with Viktor Shvets, a global strategist at Macquarie, and the author of the deeply thought-provoking book The Great Rupture, which investigates the past and interrogates current trends to probe the question: do we need to be free to be innovative, prosperous, or even happy? You know, when I started this company, I laid out three philosophical principles for its ethos: intergenerational equity; value creation > value extraction; and intellectua...

4 years ago

58 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Jake Cusack on Investing in Frontier & Fragile Markets

In this episode of the Portico Podcast I speak with Jake Cusack, co-founder and Managing Partner of The CrossBoundary Group, a firm that unlocks private capital for sustainable growth and strong returns in underserved markets. I first reached out to Jake about 10 years ago after he and one of his co-founders published a study on entrepreneurship and private sector development in Afghanistan. That initial contact kicked off a series of conversations on how to harness markets and mobilize priva...

4 years ago

49 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Weijian Shan on Leverage and Turnarounds in Asia

In this episode, I speak with Weijian Shan, the chairman and CEO of PAG — a leading Asia-focused alternative investments firm with ~ $40 billion of assets under management. Prior to PAG, Shan was a co-managing partner of TPG Asia (formerly known as Newbridge Capital). It was a real honor to have Shan on the podcast, as his life story is remarkable. If you haven’t read his memoir Out of the Gobi yet, I heartily encourage you to do so. It’s an extraordinary book that recounts Shan’s experiences...

4 years ago

46 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Tom Burgis on The Rise of Kleptocracy

In today’s episode I speak with Tom Burgis, an investigations correspondent with the Financial Times, and author of two courageous books: The Looting Machine: Warlords, Tycoons, Smugglers and the Systematic Theft of Africa’s Wealth and the recently released Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World. I strongly encourage you to buy copies of Tom’s books, read them, and share them with others. Why? Because as you’ll hear in this podcast, the themes his books cover constitute an existen...

4 years ago

46 minutes

The Portico Podcast

Monica Brand Engel on Fintech & Financial Inclusion

In the third episode of The Portico Podcast I speak with Monica Brand Engel — a co-founding Partner at Quona Capital, a venture capital firm focused on fintech for inclusion in emerging markets. If you’ve looked into EM fintech, you’ve probably come across Quona and their portfolio companies. For example: Sokowatch in East Africa, a working capital provider and last-mile distributor of fast-moving consumer goods to informal retailers;Coins in the Philippines, a mobile, branchless, block...

5 years ago

38 minutes