Hortz: Can you give us a few investment examples of companies you have found from your ground-up business environment perspective?
Scharar: For over 45 years, our investment approach has relied on the development of local knowledge and business experience. Through direct investment, business development and consulting opportunities in many of the countries we invest in, we feel we have gained access to a steady stream of on-the-ground intelligence that informs Commonwealth’s fund portfolios. This has led us to firms like:
IKE—When we first visited the New Zealand company, their focus was on selling the equipment, but the real story became selling as a service to utilities the data their equipment can generate. In a world of increased green energy, no matter what the source, for the near term it will be delivered by electric power lines on electric poles.
Capitec Bank—Early on we realized that Africa has a large number of unserved banking customers. South African based Capitec took a simple concept, efficiently banked the unbanked, and has not looked back since.
Hoya Corporation—The Japanese company’s clear mission statement coupled with its focus on health care and technology that impacts daily lives caught our attention.
Institute for Innovation Development is an educational and business development catalyst for growth-oriented financial advisors and financial services firms determined to lead their businesses in an operating environment of accelerating business and cultural change. We position our members with the necessary ongoing innovation resources and best practices to drive and facilitate their next-generation growth, differentiation and unique client/community engagement strategies. The institute was launched with the support and foresight of our founding sponsors—Ultimus Fund Solutions, NASDAQ, Pershing, Fidelity, Voya Financial and Charter Financial Publishing (publisher of Financial Advisor magazine).