The Sanad Fund for MSME (Micro Small and Medium Enterprise), a provider of loans and equity to financial institutions in the Middle East and North Africa, recently announced that it will lend USD 1.5 million to the Asala for Credit and Development Company, a microfinance institution in Palestine, for on-lending to female entrepreneurs. The microlender operates nine offices in the West Bank and Gaza, focusing on serving micro- and small enterprises owned by women in rural areas. Asala, a for-profit successor to the Palestinian Businesswomen’s Association, was launched in 2014 with support from the Sharakat Investment Fund. Sharakat, which invests in MSMEs, is managed by the Palestinian government’s Palestine Investment Fund.
As of 2015, Asala reports to the US-based nonprofit Microfinance Information Exchange (MIX) total assets of USD 6.8 million, a gross loan portfolio of USD 6.7 million, 3,100 active borrowers, return on assets of 3.8 percent and return on equity of 4.8 percent.
Sanad, whose loans are “medium- and long-term,” is an initiative of the German development bank Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) and is funded by KfW, Germany’s GLS Bank, the EU and development institutions of the Austrian, German and Swiss governments. Sanad was founded in 2011 and is domiciled in Luxembourg. It invests in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Territories, Tunisia and Yemen with an emphasis on Egypt and Tunisia. As of March 2016, Sanad has raised total investor commitments of USD 186 million. It is advised by Germany’s Finance in Motion, which manages assets valued at EUR 1.6 billion (USD 1.7 billion) as of 2017.
Sources and Additional Resources
Information provided directly to MicroCapital by Finance in Motion
Sanad
http://www.sanad.lu/
Asala
http://www.asala.ps/
MIX
https://www.themix.org/mixmarket/
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