Investing for Development - the Department for International Development's Oversight of CDC Group PLC: Report, Together with Formal Minutes, Oral and Written Evidence : Eighteenth Report of Session 20

CDC Group Plc, formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation, is the United Kingdom's Development Finance Institution. Wholly owned by the Department for International Development (DFID), it aims to help reduce poverty by supporting private sector development. CDC invests equity in private enterprises in developing countries in order to demonstrate to other investors that it is possible to make money in such countries, while at the same time creating sustainable jobs, paying taxes and following good social and environmental policies. In 2004, DFID restructured CDC in order to invest indirectly, through private fund managers. CDC invests largely in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asian enterprises in sectors as diverse as retail, finance, agriculture and manufacturing. Since 2004, CDC has grown rapidly, more than doubling the value of its assets to GBP 2.7 billion by mid-2008. DFID's oversight of certain elements of business efficiency needs to be improved. CDC invests over 70 per cent of its resources in poor countries but has limited influence where its fund managers invest. Only 4 per cent of its resources are invested in small and medium enterprises, which suffer a shortage of finance. For DFID, financial performance is the principal indicator of CDC's development impact. This information, however, is not sufficient to assess CDC's effect on poverty reduction and not enough is done to measure compliance with ethical investment principles. The level and nature of CDC executive remuneration are also relevant to business efficiency and management incentives. The Chief Executive's remuneration increased from GBP 383,000 in 2003 to GBP 970,000 in 2007, reflecting in part CDC's exceptional financial performance but pay arrangements place too much emphasis on financial performance and too little on success in reducing poverty.