Deutsche Bank commits £450k to £10m social entrepreneurs fund

Multinational financial giant Deutsche Bank has made a powerful entrance to the world of UK social investment by becoming a cornerstone investor in a £10m Big Issue Invest fund for social entrepreneurs.

Deutsche Bank UK CEO Colin Grassie trumpeted the £450,000 commitment at a social investment event held at the bank’s City offices last night.

He said: ‘Deutsche Bank is committed to playing a role in developing social investment mechanisms.

‘We see tremendous opportunity for developing a social investment asset class.’

Big Issue Invest has so far succeeded in raising £3m for the £10m fund from trusts and high net worth individuals.

Big Issue Invest CEO Nigel Kershaw said he wanted to create a ‘6.55pm club’ of investors. He painted a picture of investors working hard from 7am to 7.30pm making money but then putting their philanthropic hat on at 7.31pm and giving that money away.

He said the 6.55pm club would change the working habits of investors so that they would not have to wait until they clocked off work to do good in the world. Instead they would use the last 35 minutes of their work day - from 6.55pm - in social investment, making money and doing good at the same time.

The room full of potential investors and civil society supporters heard from several high profile speakers. Issues discussed included whether there were enough growing social enterprises that needed high level investment to justify a growing level of social investment.

David Cameron’s Big Society adviser Nat Wei said: ‘I think the issue in this space is not so much is there enough pipeline [social enterprises needing investment] or aggregate capital [enough money available from investors], I think it’s getting the money in the right place at the right time.’

Deutsche Bank head of UK strategy Tiina Lee pointed to the important role intermediaries like Big Issue Invest would play in finding the right social enterprises to invest in.

‘It is very resource intensive but you can go through intermediaries who do this for a living,’ said Lee.

‘If the [social investment] market grows than it’s an area we could commit more resources to, but for us at this stage, it’s very hard to access the market without using intermediaries like Big Issue Invest.’

The Big Issue Invest £10m fund for social entrepreneurs is only open to high-net-worth individuals and professional investors to invest in.