January 2012 - Editorial

At a time society is calling into question the dubious practices that led to the current financial crisis, we continue to discover social entrepreneurs daily in France, Europe and around the world who created social enterprises and need funding and support.

They share one goal: to respond to a need or a social emergency through an operational solution or a specific service. Most of them have existed for many years. With an increasingly prosper environment, particularly thanks to the awareness of governments and the private sector, they have the ability to be profitable and the will to continuously adjust their growth model to improve their social impact.

PhiTrust Partenaires has chosen to fund and support those companies that have proven the relevance of their social impact. Their management has to confront all the challenges faced by a fast growing SME without compromising their social mission.

We now have a portfolio of some twenty social enterprises in Europe and Africa, some of which have needs for additional funding and strategic support in order to implement their development strategy, which leads us to move forward in our fund raising process to meet their expectations and give them the financial and strategic tools for success.

We hope many of you will join us to support these entrepreneurs who have become true friends and who continue to prove every day that a company can strive for social good while creating economic value. Without their example, we would not be convinced that ethical and sustainable finance is possible.

Olivier de Guerre
Chairman, PhiTrust Partenaires
olivier.deguerre@phitrust.com