This year we are celebrating 25 years since we were formally founded. We have evolved to be one of the elite business schools of the world, embedded in the world’s top University, and aspiring to be a model of purposeful leadership. We have a well-deserved reputation for excellence.

Time Value of Money: The basic principle that $1 today is worth more than $1 in the future. That was back in the days when a bank would add money to your savings account at the end of the year and you were therefore better off receiving the dough now than later. These times are gone, but the principle remains that you probably prefer to have money now so you can invest it and have more in the future, or not.

A tax haven is generally an offshore country that offers foreign individuals and businesses little or no tax liability in a politically and economically static environment. Tax havens also share limited or no financial information with foreign tax authorities. Tax havens do not typically require residency or business presence for individuals and businesses to benefit from their tax policies.

Limited Partners (LP) are the ones who have arranged and invested the capital for venture capital fund but are not really concerned about the daily maintenance of a venture capital fund whereas General Partners (GP) are investment professionals who are vested with the responsibility of making decisions with respect to the ventures that are required to be invested.

IRR: A widely used measure of investment performance. Internal Rate of Return is the discount rate at which future cash flows, discounted back to the present, equal the purchase price. Implicitly, IRR assumes that every distribution that is received is reinvested at that IRR rate. High early cash flows set the IRR to a high level, which in turns means that all intermediate distributions are assumed to be re-invested at the unrealistically high rate, making IRR unrealistically high and sticky (IRR does not change much irrespective of what happens to investments after some time). Similarly, if initial investments do not do well, IRR will be negative and then imply that all intermediary distributions are burnt at the same rate each year (some capital is destroyed as it is assumed to be re-invested at a negative rate), leading to a misleading low IRR. In practice, and for some mysterious reasons, practitioners recognize the IRR problem when it is negative and never report a negative IRR. Instead, they rightly report ‘not meaningful’. However, when IRR produces a similarly unreasonable re-investment rate (say 30%), many advertise it very loudly.

Different species occupy different niches in the web of life. Knowing what species inhabit an ecosystem, and how many of each kind there are, is critical to understanding that ecosystem's structure and function, and predicting future changes. Scientists who look at the variation of life in a forest, a stream or a patch of soil are looking at its biodiversity.

Two and twenty (or "2 and 20") is a fee arrangement that is standard in the hedge fund industry and is also common in venture capital and private equity. Hedge fund management companies typically charge clients both a management and a performance fee. "Two" means 2% of assets under management (AUM), and refers to the annual management fee charged by the hedge fund for managing assets. "Twenty" refers to the standard performance or incentive fee of 20% of profits made by the fund above a certain predefined benchmark.

This year, the Davos Forum will be celebrating its most special and challenging edition, in the midst of the ongoing COVID pandemic. For this reason, the 51st edition of the World Economic Forum (World Economic Forum, WEF) will be held in two phases: An virtual one in January and another one, face-to-face, in August. The summit will convene politicians, businessmen and representatives of social and cultural organizations at a crucial time for the world, under the tagline ‘The Great Reset‘.

The Sustainable Development Goals are a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection.

Social Sustainability in Business. From a business perspective, social sustainability is about understanding the impacts of corporations on people and society.

Science-based targets show companies how much and how quickly they need to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

During the Sixth Assessment cycle, 2016 – 2022, the IPCC is producing three special reports in addition to a new assessment report. The first of these special reports is called Global warming of 1.5 Degrees C. Is it also referred to as the 1.5-Degree Special Report or SR1.5.

Our mission is to build a movement to measure and incentivise business impact towards a sustainable future that works for everyone. We envision a society that values the success of business by what it contributes to the world.

r3.0 promotes Redesign for Resilience and Regeneration. As a global common good not-for-profit platform, r3.0 crowdsources open recommendations for necessary transformations across diverse fields and sectors, in response to the ecological and social collapses humanity is experiencing, in order to achieve a thriving, regenerative and distributive economy and society.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) provides financing of private-enterprise investment in developing countries around the world, through both loans and direct investments. Affiliated with the World Bank, it also provides advisory services to encourage the development of private enterprise in nations that might be lacking the necessary infrastructure or liquidity for businesses to secure financing.

This is version 2.6 (both Kindle and hard copy; Audiobook is following the first edition)! Designed for an MBA course on private equity, this textbook aims to familiarize any reader with the jargon and mechanics of private markets using simplified examples, real-life situations and results from thorough academic studies.

Impact investing is an investment strategy that aims to generate specific beneficial social or environmental effects in addition to financial gains. Impact investments may take the form of numerous asset classes and may result in many specific outcomes. The point of impact investing is to use money and investment capital for positive social results.

An investment thesis is a reasoned argument for a particular investment strategy, backed up by research and analysis. In the financial world, an analyst may prepare a formal document outlining an investment thesis for presentation to potential investors or an investment committee.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria are a set of standards for a company’s operations that socially conscious investors use to screen potential investments. Environmental criteria consider how a company performs as a steward of nature. Social criteria examine how it manages relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities where it operates. Governance deals with a company’s leadership, executive pay, audits, internal controls, and shareholder rights.

The Predistribution Initiative is a multi-stakeholder effort to improve investment structures so that:
Workers and communities share more of the gains of economic growth and have stronger influence in terms of corporate governance; Investment teams have stronger incentives for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) integration; and, Systemic and systematic risks including inequality and climate change are addressed.

Environmental, Social and Governance. Essential topics and increasingly a must in fundraising. A way for finance professionals to feel they contribute positively to society, and maybe they do after all, sometimes. In practice, the notion of ESG has evolved to refer to the part of risk management and discussions related to ESG-related topics. For example, an ESG report would discuss how a given company is dealing with risks associated with climate change. The Alternative Oxford Private Equity Dictionary.

Delilah Rothenberg is the Founder & Executive Director of the Predistribution Initiative (PDI), a multi-stakeholder effort to improve investment structures to share more wealth and influence with workers and communities, have stronger incentives to invest responsibly, and that ultimately address systemic risks including income inequality and climate change.

Over the last twenty years, Ludo has been actively researching the private equity industry.