Investee company name:
Sector:
Country of origin:
Region:
Aureos fund:
Total invested:
Date invested:
Investment type:
Uganda Microfinance Ltd (UML)
Financial Services
Uganda
East Africa
Aureos East Africa Fund (AEAF)
US$1.0 million
December 2004
Change of control
Uganda Microfinance Ltd. (UML) is a leading Ugandan micro-finance institution (MFI) founded in August 2005 and based in Kampala, Uganda. It offers savings and loans products to low-income clients (roughly half of whom are women) with informal collateral conditions and flexible repayment schedules.
UML grew out of Uganda Microfinance Union (UMU), a non-governmental organisation set up in 1997 by Rodney Schuster and Charles Naylaali to provide financial services to micro-entrepreneurs and low income people throughout Uganda. Aureos East Africa Fund’s (AEAF) US$1 million equity and debt investment enabled UMU to transition into UML, a fully-fledged, regulated micro-deposit taking institution – one of only four in Uganda.
Aureos East Africa Fund (AEAF) is working closely with the company to help improve its corporate governance, its management information systems and its internal controls. Also, AEAF, as part of Aureos’s strategy of building bigger regional players within industrial sectors, is discussing a potential partnership with another MFI in Kenya.
Microfinance is a fast-growing sector so Aureos wants to create powerful regional companies that can use their size and success to the benefit of customers and shareholders.