IFC awards $500,000 grant to CRISIL

28 Sep '06

3 min read

Today, the International Finance Corporation, the private arm of the World Bank, awarded a $500,000 grant to CRISIL, Standard & Poor's, and KLD; and to Trucost and CLSA, the winners of its research competition "Capturing Value."

The competition aims to provide investors in emerging market equities with better research on companies' environmental, social, and corporate governance performance and facilitate high-quality, long-term investment in emerging markets from pension funds and other investors worldwide.

In choosing the winners, IFC paid particular attention to the ability of their projects to catalyze market development and capacity to raise the level of environmental, social, and corporate governance performance. IFC also focused on analytical tools that would bring a broad range of investors into the debate.

Rachel Kyte, Director of IFC's Environment and Social Development Department, said, "Through this seed funding we are hoping to break a chicken-and-egg situation where investors will not invest in emerging markets for lack of information, and research providers will not enter the market for lack of demand. The object of the competition is to lead the market and to provide tools to a mainstream investment audience."

Subir Gokarn, Executive Director and Chief Economist of CRISIL, said, "In our view, increased transparency in emerging market companies in environmental and socially responsible behavior and governance can act as astrong incentive for investors. They often view performance on those dimensions as a proxy for management quality. In creating an environmental, social, and corporate governance index of Indian companies, our goal is to develop a new market instrument that aligns investor and public interest and that can be replicated in other emerging markets."

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