Impact investing and Soul Capital: What access to capital should be

Soul Capital – how’s that for the name of an investment company – investing that’s good for the soul. That’s the name of an outfit run by a friend and colleague Dr Jamie Newth of Ngāpuhi. Now after co-facilitating the day-long ANZAM symposium on indigenous management research at AUT marae, I headed off down the road to the Deloitte Tower on lower Queen Street, Auckland to attend a seminar hosted by Jamie’s company on impact investing (held Tuesday 4 December 2018, 4-6pm). The forum by-line was “The Why, the How, and the What of Impact Deals.”

Set against a backdrop of the majestic Waitematā and Rangitoto Island twenty-two stories up, I grabbed a seat at the back of the already packed floor one-hour into the seminar. Fashionably late as usual. On the slightly elevated stage before the throng was a esteemed line-up of Jamie’s friends and colleagues who certainly have something to say about impact investing. Among them were Tindal Foundation manager, John McCarthy, Super Fund head of responsible investment Anne-Maree O’Connor, Soul Capital director and investor, Dave Curtis, and my Tūhoe whanaunga Deloitte partner Leon Wijohn.

It was a real fire-side chat, like watching Parkinson interview his line up of guests on the adjacent sofa, or the Graham Norton show (without the prodigious humour) for those unfamiliar with Sir Michael. It was a pretty cool little event, but I think I missed the why and the how of impact investing and just got to the what. Slated as a two-hour event, no one was moving from their seats after two and half hours, the questions still flowing and the answers getting more interesting.

The ever-present Kaye-Maree Dunn, project manager extraordinaire from Māori Women’s Development Incorporated (MWDI) asked a question about the panel’s views on impact investing in the Māori business community, and sharing a little about what MWDI has been doing in fostering social enterprise among Māori with Akina Foundation.

Kaye-Maree’s question seemed to shift the attention of the panel and the audience onto the Māori economy, Māori enterprise and investing in this environment. All were only too keen to oblige. Three themes emerged for me from the ensuing discussion: (1) the role of indigenous Māori values in guiding investment by Māori enterprises and investments in Māori enterprises; (2) what a kaupapa Māori set of principles, practices and processes for investment might look like? And (3) how can we connect impact investment funds, fund managers and the like with Māori social enterprises who seek such funds? A fourth is what non-Māori can learn from Māori about impact investing, but we have to do the research and present case studies (next time maybe).

One of the points I was able to share is that Māori enterprises are looking for precisely these kinds of indigenous investing frameworks drawing inspiration from indigenous values and non-indigenous values and frameworks.

In terms of post-settlement governance entities, there are 57 mandated iwi organisations (MIOs) under the Māori Fisheries Act 2004, 55 of which have received their allocation of fisheries settlement assets. Each of these MIOs will have an asset holding company, which is required to produce an income for the parent body to distribute to charitable purposes beneficial to the iwi as every MIO is established as a charity.

Every one of these MIOs will be asking their subsidiary companies to invest in ways that might seem outside the norm – what we might call kaupapa Māori investing. Where do they find guidance on such things; the short answer is we have to create these new frameworks and test them in the marketplace. A simple 60:40 split between retained earnings and distributions to the parent body, and a mixed asset portfolio are insufficient to meet the expectations of contemporary Māori enterprise.

It would be fascinating to return to Soul Capital’s 2019 fora with a bit more evidence and insight on kaupapa Māori investing as a contribution to the idea of impact investing – investing with soul, or investing with aroha. Ka pai Jamie me ōu hoa mahi mō te hui nei. Hei te tau e tu mai e hoa ka pu te whakaaro nui.