This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

Luke Nelson (left) and Eric Gordon (right) at the Semafor Fintech Conference Insights from Semafor’s “Banking on the Future: The Next Era of Fintech” Conference Last week, the global news organization Semafor hosted a conference featuring prominent fintech leaders discussing the industry's future amid recent technological, political, and legal developments. Fintech is fundamentally reshaping financial systems, influencing consumers' daily lives worldwide, often without their explicit recognition. At the conference, I was particularly captivated by discussions on the scale of Fintech’s adoption, the impact of Section 1033, and the implications of advancements in artificial intelligence. Witnessing industry leaders discuss their excitement about the future revealed the collaborative efforts driving technological and regulatory innovation in the Fintech sector. Fintech is here to stay: Nearly 9 out of 10 people today utilize Fintech applications, and the average person uses 3 to 4...

"Thriving As a Minority-Owned Business in Corporate America" by William Michael Cunningham is a guidebook for minority entrepreneurs on how to build successful businesses in the corporate world. The book emphasizes the importance of understanding the unique challenges faced by minority-owned businesses, including racism and discrimination, and provides strategies for overcoming them. The key ideas and arguments presented in the book include the importance of developing a solid business plan, building a network of supportive individuals, finding financing, and navigating the corporate landscape. The book also highlights the benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace and how minority entrepreneurs can use their differences to create a competitive advantage. The chapter titles of the book are as follows: Introduction Starting Your Business Developing Your Business Plan Finding Financing Building a Network Navigating the Corporate Landscape Diversity and Inclusion in t...

The article below documents the creation of the first social impact bond, a mortgage security backed by home mortgage loans exclusively from minority-owned institutions. Fannie Mae, GE Capital Mortgage Corp., Creative Investment Research, and an institutional investor collaborated to create this mortgage security.  The mortgage security involved private investors providing upfront capital to Creative Investment Research for this specific social intervention, which aimed to open the secondary mortgage market to minority-owned institutions, allowing them to offer more mortgage loans to their target customer base. The investment returns were derived from the underlying mortgage loans, which were tied to the positive social outcome. We note that the graphic above, showing the individual mortgage loans in an MBS pool, was one of the first to use geocoding to display social metrics of an investment, in this case, mapping loan location to area income. This was another significant innovati...

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What is Investment Research And Why Is It Broken? Investment research studies of the performance of stocks, bonds, metals, mutual funds, and other assets. This is done, most often, to influence investment decision making. It seeks to "produce a guide to what investments to make.” With the capture of regulatory authorities (who are, supposedly, looking out of the public interest) by financial institutions, the number of investment "assets" has increased. There are now more than 5,000,000 different types of investment vehicles. Many have little actual value. A new investment class with actual value may be cryptocurrencies. A cryptocurrency is a  digital program or asset designed to work like currency .  Bitcoin  is a  cryptocurrency. What is Investment Research? As we note in our online class , investing is "the process of spending money in order to increase the original dollar amount." Investment research provides timely information that, combi...

An estimated  $7 billion in corporate  pledges have been made to facilitate efforts that support racial justice, and help activities  that seek immediate solutions  to the crisis affecting Black people. We are very familiar with these types of promises, having launched the first website focusing on financial support for minority communities in 1995 and a new website to monitor such corporate pledges. Yet it appears that only $188 million of that $7 billion is money someone can reasonably expect to get their hands on. Further, in certain sections of the Black community, there is concern about the effectiveness of the traditional organizations identified as recipients of the pledges. And there appears to be less  concern with newer, trending  organizations. Our recent survey of  customers banking at black-owned banks  suggests most consumers who do not use Black banks are concerned about their financial stability, and have not been able ...

Come advocate for change! SPECIAL GUESTS: CONGRESSMAN HANK JOHNSON (D-GA) DR. CHARLES STEELE, JR., PRESIDENT AND CEO, SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE WILLIAM MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM, FOUNDER - CREATIVE INVESTMENT RESEARCH Wednesday May 13, 2020 6:00 pm ET. Zoom Webinar.  https://www.creativeinvestmentresearch.org/covid

Creative Investment Research, Inc. announced today that it's Diversity Index Portfolio returned 35.13% from April 19, 2011 to March 30, 2013. The Diversity Index is an investment portfolio containing stocks of the largest companies in the U.S. These companies have been selected because they have outstanding investment characteristics and are top performers with respect to four key measures of inclusion and diversity: Human capital, CEO commitment, corporate communications, and supplier diversity . By comparison, the S and P 500, or the Standard and Poor's 500, returned 18.14% over the same time period. According to Wikipedia, "The S and P 500 is a stock market index based on the market capitalizations of 500 leading companies publicly traded in the U.S. stock market, as determined by Standard and Poor's. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices and many consider it the best representation of the market as well as a bellwether for the U.S. economy....

I thought we would post, from 2008 and 2009, some of the first infographics  we created: Global Market Turmoil Graphic and Financial Crisis Calendar Graphic , by Creative Investment Research, Inc., December, 2008 and November, 2009.

Black Banks Are Feeling the Pinch Recession pushes profits to nine-year lows By Jeffrey McKinney - June 08, 2009 Profits at the nation’s black owned banks last year plunged to a nine-year low, newly released data shows. The annual statistics, compiled last month by William Michael Cunningham, senior investment adviser at Creative Investment Research Inc. , a Washington D.C. firm specializing in minority banking, illustrated a major decline as some black owned banks suffered big losses tied to securities-related investments. See: http://www.blackenterprise.com/be-100s/be100s-news/2009/06/08/black-banks-feeling-the-pinch

Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2009. NEW YORK -- The financial turmoil that has weakened or destroyed some of Wall Street's most prominent companies is presenting an opportunity for some lesser-known firms, especially those owned by women and minorities. One company that is benefiting is Williams Capital Group LP, an African-American-owned broker-dealer and asset manager in New York. Earlier this week, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it will invest $1 billion in a money-market fund managed by Williams Capital, more than doubling the amount of funds the firm has under management and pushing it over a critical size threshold that could help it attract additional institutional investors. Last month, Williams Capital was named as part of a team assembled by Invesco Ltd. that applied to participate in the Treasury Department's Public-Private Investment Program, or PPIP, an effort to relieve banks of toxic assets. Invesco, and its affiliate WL Ross & Co., which is controlled by money...

From: American Banker Newspaper Wednesday, September 19, 2007 By Katie Kuehner-Hebert Banks that target minority groups, particularly Hispanics and Asian-Americans, are reporting asset growth well above the industry average, largely because of an influx of immigrants. However, on average these banks are less profitable and less efficient than mainstream ones, according to a report published last week by Creative Investment Research Inc. , a Washington consulting firm that focuses on minority banking. Assets at minority-owned banks are on pace to increase by an average of 17.43% this year, compared with the overall industry average of 6.38%, according to the report, which cited data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and other sources. William Michael Cunningham , the consulting firm's president and chief executive, said the trend reflects both the increased number of start-ups targeting Hispanics — about a dozen have opened since the end of 2005 — and the continued ...