CDC - CDC Group plc

Cardinal Place, Level 2
80 Victoria Street
SW1E 5JL London
UK
Tel: +44 20 7963 4700
Fax: +44 20 7963 4750
www.cdcgroup.com

General Information

CDC’s mission is to be a pioneering investor, stimulating the private sector and demonstrating the power of enterprise and private capital to reduce poverty in the poorest parts of the world.

Owned by the UK government’s Department for International Development, CDC is the world’s oldest development finance institution and has been investing in businesses in the developing world for over 60 years.

Under its new business plan, announced in May 2011, CDC concentrates on the low and lower-middle income countries of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia where 70% of the world’s poor live. In lower-income countries, CDC’s investments focus is on regions and sectors of need where capital is scarce.

CDC invests through private equity funds, with capital invested through over 70 fund managers who know and understand emerging markets. Under the new business plan, CDC will also invest through debt and guarantees and will make direct investments.

CDC requires its fund managers and their investee businesses to sign up to its Investment Code. This commits them to best international practice on standards in environment, social and governance matters.

The company has built up a net asset value of £2.8bn, with capital invested in almost 1,000 businesses of all sizes and across all sectors. These businesses support the lives of some three million people and in 2010 generated over US$3bn in taxes for host governments. In this way CDC makes a lasting contribution to sustainable development because a thriving private sector, as the engine of economic growth, is essential for developing economies to lift themselves out of poverty in the long term.