The family office will look to co-invest alongside the UN agency to help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals in the world’s poorest countries

The United Nations Capital Development Fund (‘UNCDF’) and Lupoff Friends and Family Interests, LLC (‘Lupoff Friends and Family’) today announced their partnership to drive additional private capital to catalytic investments in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (‘SDGs’) in the world’s poorest 47 nations, known as the Least Developed Countries (‘LDCs’).

Lupoff Friends and Family will seek opportunities to co-invest alongside UNCDF as it makes loans and guarantees to a pipeline of small and medium-sized enterprises (‘SMEs’), financial service providers and local infrastructure projects in the LDCs. It may also take a stake in the UNCDF-Impact Shares Exchange Traded Fund (ticker ‘SDGA’) that includes 200 large corporations that have a positive economic impact in the LDCs, as judged by an index co-created by UNCDF, Impact Shares, Morningstar and Sustainalytics. In his capacity as a Fellow at Fordham University’s Center for Research in Contemporary Finance, teaching impact investing, and as Executive in Residence at Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business, Peter Lupoff will also work with UNCDF to set up an internship for Fordham graduate students to gain first-hand knowledge of the origination and structuring of impact deals in emerging markets around the world.

UNCDF and Lupoff Friends and Family announced their partnership at the December 12, 2018 Fordham Impact Investment Convening, a conference that brought together over 300 investment professionals interested in achieving social, environmental or development impact alongside financial returns.

“We are very excited about our collaboration with Peter Lupoff,” said UNCDF Executive Secretary Judith Karl. “This is our first such partnership with a family office, and it will bring us a wealth of financial knowledge, sophistication, and expertise. With his decades of experience and unmatched insights into the investment world, Peter will be an invaluable strategic advisor for UNCDF as we continue to pioneer innovative financial vehicles to help attract private investment capital to the entrepreneurs, small businesses, and regions that need it most.”

“This partnership is unique and innovative,” said Peter Lupoff, founder and Principal of Lupoff Friends and Family Interests, LLC. “For those that seek financial returns and social or environmental impact, the intentionality of capital invested in collaboration with the UNCDF cannot be any higher. Further, for those concerned about impact measurement, you are partnering with the effective arbiters of the UN’s Social Development Goals.”

About UNCDF:

The UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 47 least developed countries.

With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. UNCDF’s financing models work through two channels: financial inclusion that expands the opportunities for individuals, households, and small businesses to participate in the local economy, providing them with the tools they need to climb out of poverty and manage their financial lives; and by showing how localized investments—through fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance—can drive public and private funding that underpins local economic expansion and sustainable development.

By strengthening how finance works for poor people at the household, small enterprise, and local infrastructure levels, UNCDF contributes to SDG 1 on eradicating poverty and SDG 17 on the means of implementation. By identifying those market segments where innovative financing models can have transformational impact in helping to reach the last mile and address exclusion and inequalities of access, UNCDF contributes to a number of different SDGs.

Visit us at www.uncdf.org, follow @UNCDF and subscribe for updates at bit.ly/2wwDiqs

About Lupoff Friends and Family Interests, LLC: Lupoff Friends and Family is the family office and holding company of the various activities, including investments, academic work, advisory and projects, of Peter M. Lupoff and Family. Lupoff Friends and Family makes direct investments in public securities through its own and managed accounts, outside managers, as well as Impact Investing and direct private investments on behalf of its Members. Peter Lupoff is the managing member of Lupoff Friends and Family Interests, LLC, his vehicle for direct and managed investments. He is Fordham University Fellow at the Center for Research in Contemporary Finance, as well as the Fordham Gabelli School of Business Executive in Residence for 2018-2019.

Mr. Lupoff is a regular featured discussant on academic papers related to, and consultant to, The Federal Reserve Bank regarding market shocks and liquidity. Mr. Lupoff is an outside director of various unaffiliated investment entities and consults family offices and heirs, hedge funds and other institutional asset managers regarding investment policy, legacy, business development, conflicts and liquidity and liquidation execution.

Media enquiries:

For Lupoff Friends and Family Interests, LLC:

Peter Lupoff
195 Montague Street – 11^th Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Phone: +1 (646) 840-4925 ​
Email: info@lupoff.com

For UNCDF:

Esther Pan Sloane
Head, Partnerships, Policy and Communication
New York, USA

Phone: +1 (212) 906-6522
Email: esther.pan.sloane@uncdf.org