In early 2020, Gandaki Urja Pvt. Ltd., Nepal’s largest commercial scale biogas plant, began distributing bio Compressed Natural Gas (bio-CNG)–a form of clean fuel generated from livestock and farm waste–to customers in Pokhara, in western Nepal. In addition to the new clients, Gandaki Urja’s team had good reasons to be upbeat: in late 2019 it received a Nepali Rupee 50 million ($413,000) investment from IFC-backed Business Oxygen (BO2), Nepal’s first private equity fund and the country’s only climate-focused fund. Company leaders were confident of reaching full production capacity quickly and expanding further. But that was before COVID-19. As the pandemic […]

दीपक शर्मा, काठमाडौँ — वैशाख १९, २०७७ विश्व अर्थतन्त्र नै महामारीको चपेटामा परेको छ । नेपाली अर्थतन्त्र पनि यसबाट अछूत छैन । व्यापार–व्यवसाय ठप्प भएको पनि एक महिनाभन्दा बढी भइसक्यो र अझै कति समय यस्तै चल्ने हो भन्ने अन्योल छ । भूकम्प र नाकाबन्दीको चपेटाबाट माथि उठ्न सफल भएको हाम्रो अर्थतन्त्रलाई अहिलेको विपद्बाट माथि उठ्न पहिलेजस्तो सजिलो छैन । हामी विपद्लाई रोक्न सक्दैनौं तर जोखिम कम गर्ने उपायहरू अपनाउन सक्छौं । विभिन्न क्षतिमध्ये वित्तीय क्षति न्यूनीकरणका धेरै उपाय हुन सक्छन् । वित्तीय क्षति र यसको न्यूनीकरणका उपाय जान्न वित्तीय व्यवस्थापनबारे बुझ्न जरुरी हुन्छ । व्यवसाय सञ्चालनका लागि आवश्यक लगानी कसरी […]

Post pandemic the government must expedite the foreign investment process to show that Nepal is back in business As we face an unprecedented and precarious pandemic that has caused uncertainty to the entire global economy, Nepal’s own response to it will determine at what velocity our economy will hit the ground. We need to brace ourselves for a very hard landing. All businesses have been severely disrupted by the COVID-19 lockdown. As private equity investors, our first task has been to assess the nature of the problem that they face and provide solutions. The effect of this contagion has not […]

The coronavirus pandemic has also brought out the best in institutions and individuals helping those in need during the lockdown At Health at Home  the phone lines open at 7am ever day. Within minutes the calls start coming in. Five volunteer doctors are online to take the average 500 calls a day from people all over the country concerned about coronavirus symptoms. Dalle Momo, the dumpling company, prepares 250 meals a day at its central kitchen at Ratopul and distributes them to security personnel enforcing the lockdown at intersections across Kathmandu, to frontline health workers at the Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital […]

Try to explain what BO2 is doing: 
 Business Oxygen Private Limited (BO2) is Nepal’s first private-equity fund that has a climate focus. It is a part of the IFC’s Global SME Ventures initiative with investments from the IFC of the World Bank Group, Climate Investment Fund’s (PPCR) and UK Aid’s DFID and is managed by WLC Ventures Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of White Lotus Centre Pvt. Ltd. This sector-agnostic fund combines risk capital financing with advisory support to help investee small and medium enterprises develop fundamental financial systems, quality-assurance standards, and corporate governance frameworks.   Can you give an […]

  Nepal’s future may not be in hydropower, as most assume, but actually in the dung heap. A new industrial-scale biogas plant near Pokhara has proved that livestock and farm waste producing flammable methane gas can replace imported LPG and chemical fertiliser. Over the past 30 years, Nepal has become a world leader in spreading locally-designed household biogas digesters. There are now 300,000 of them, helping reduce deforestation, improving people’s health and lifting women out of drudgery and poverty. Now, a company in Pokhara has enlarged household digesters into an industrial scale plant that uses climate-friendly technology that could ultimately […]

– Deepak Sharma Background Private Equity and Venture capital (PEVC) is newly introduced alternative financing model in Nepal. Looking at the current trend PEVC could gain importance in Nepal. According to World Bank Enterprise Survey 2013, 364 percent collateral is needed for bank loans in Nepal which is way above the South Asian average. Only 35 percent of Nepali firms have access to bank loans and access to finance has been identified as a major constraint for 40 percent of Nepali firms. So, an alternative source of finance, risk capital to be specific, was to give vibrancy to the business […]

The rule banning FDI less than Rs50 million is a slap in the face of small and medium enterprises – Ritu Pradhan Malla It is whimsical to expect a small tree to provide boundless fruit without fertilising it and enabling its roots to grow. But that seems to be what Nepal’s policy-makers think. Government revenue is dependent on imports, instead of building a sustainably nurturing an enabling business environment for small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs). Such narrow vision is discouraging entrepreneurship and making Nepal further dependent on the outside. Our largest export market is labour with income generated by as […]

– SIDDHANT RAJ PANDEY At the Global Private Equity Conference in Washington, DC last month discussions ranged from geopolitics and the global economy to investing across borders to releasing $150 trillion of blocked assets in emerging markets–among many other interesting topics that delved on issues of governance, climate change and impact investing. At the same time, halfway around the globe, back home in Nepal, new rules had been put in place that raised the barrier-to-entry for foreign direct investments from Rs5 million to Rs50 million. The logic behind the tenfold increment seems to escape everyone conversant in dealing with foreign […]

Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul (https://www.dealstreetasia.com/author/chalida/) Business Oxygen (https://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=Business+Oxygen) (BO2), the first private equity firm in Nepal, plans to make up to 14 investments in total and deploy about 80 per cent of its $14-million fund by the year end, chairman and CEO Siddhant Raj Pandey told DEALSTREETASIA. IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, appointed White Lotus Centre Pvt. Ltd. as fund manager for Business Oxygen, its SME ventures fund in Nepal, in 2015. BO2 is an 80:20 joint venture between International Finance Corporation (IFC) and local business consultancy firm White Lotus Centre. BO2 fund focuses on investing in Nepal’s high-growth, […]