CDC Group plc (CDC), the UK’s development finance institution (DFI), has appointed Mark Pay as Managing Director, Direct Investments.
Pay’s career has primarily been in direct investing and has encompassed making, developing and exiting investments in Africa, India, the Americas, China and the UK. He left CDC in 2004 to join the newly created Actis LLP, the emerging markets fund manager that was spun out of CDC. He has been involved in more than a hundred investments in developing countries.
CDC has created the new Direct Investments division following the publication of a new high level business plan in June 2011. Under the new plan CDC will return to making direct investments, alongside selected partners, in promising businesses in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Previously, between 2004 and 2011, CDC had primarily made intermediated investments.
The new business plan resulted from a review of CDC and its activities by the Secretary of State for International Development, Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP to ensure that CDC achieves the greatest possible demonstrable development impact. Under the new plan CDC will evolve into a more flexible, transparent and distinctive DFI focused on the poorest parts of the world, in particular sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
CDC’s Chief Executive Officer Diana Noble says: “I’m delighted that Mark Pay will be leading the Direct Investment division, bringing with him huge experience of investing in low-income countries, to achieve development outcomes. The new division will complement CDC’s fund investments and deepen the reach of our capital so it’s targeted where it can have the maximum possible development impact.”
CDC has also appointed Bradley Smith to the role of credit analyst to strengthen the firm’s debt team. As well as an increase in direct investments, the provision of debt finance will also grow significantly under the new high-level business plan announced in June 2011.
