Not we need to revisit the concept of u. S. Enterprise funds. U. S. Enterprise funds were launched in early 1990s by george h. W. Bush. U. S. Government dollars funded investments in developing countries. It was an idea that was ahead of its time. And there were several dozen of these Enterprise Funds that were launched. Many of them were very successful. Some that had some hiccups. But most were broadly very successful, but you would ask yourself, why hasnt there is any number of Different Countries where you would say we ought to be applying this. Thankfully, in the Obama Administration, there were a number of countries where there was political will to apply this tool, and i think its a very valid and useful tool for our tool kit in the United States. And so we have examples from tunisia and egypt that were going to talk about, as well. So were going to talk a little bit about the history of what are these things, how they come about, what can we learn from the past. How are some of the more recent ones operating. And then finally, i think the most important thing is about the future, because i think theres in some ways, this was it was certainly ahead of its time and there is a lot of learnings from the past. But i think there are plenty of countries where we ought to be applying this in new additional countries, but also maybe in different ways, given the fact that the world has changed from, say, 25 years ago. And so the instrument needs to adapt with the times. So weve got a very experienced group of panelists. Im really pleased to have all these smart folks on the panel. Im not going to go into bios, into detailed bios for each of them. But im going to ask my friend, page alexander, the executive director of European Cooperative for rural development, but more importantly a former assistant administrator and someone who was one of the point people on Enterprise Funds in several points in her career, but most recently during the Obama Administration. So page, thanks for flying in from brussels to be here. And then ill introduce each of the panels before they speak. So page, why dont you give us a little bit of context here on Enterprise Funds. Sure. Thanks, dan. I see so many people in the audience who know more about Enterprise Funds than i do, having spent years working on them. So ill just give you a brief perspective that i have, having come in 1993, and sort of seeing what it was like through the 90s, the early 2000s and then the colleagues with bo and jim seeing what they were like when they started up again in 2012. So i think Enterprise Funds were truly designed for a solution to a problem in a very specific context. And kim will be able to talk more about that. Because what we had in the 90s and early 2000s, as we were looking at a dual mandate of how does the u. S. Government get involved in these countries in a quick way that we can get quick results, poland and hungary, president bush wanted to announce something. These were designed in a vacuum of, okay, the u. S. Government does not have the Technical Expertise to look at private equity, venture capital. This is not what we do. We can hire private boards who can go in and set up these Enterprise Funds. I dont think, and there are probably other congressional staffers here who can attest to the fact that no one thought these were going to be financially viable or sustainable. So there was not a lot of thought done to what happens after liquidation. So then we spent most of 2010, onwards, trying to figure out what to do about liquidation, legacy funds, things that we could do to leave behind. But backing up to the Enterprise Fund, at this point, the creation happened so quickly, and with the dual mandate of you need to transition these countries to a market economy, yet at the same time, you need to make money. And then the mandate of development was sort of left to the accord of each individual board, as to how much of it would be truly developmentfordevelopment purists sake or was it going to be we will set up an airport in albania, a Banking Sector in bulgaria. Work with mortgage lending in the baltics. These things were decided amongst the private sector boards. So usaids oversite and state departments oversite became tenuous as congress it said to ask questions, what is it youre doing, how quickly are they going to be able to react. And so we went through a growth period of over 25 years. And i believe a report will be coming out soon as to what these Enterprise Funds and the legacies have left behind 25 years later. And i see, you know, other members from a Legacy Fund Im actually a member of the romanianamerican legacy fund. I see craig from the russian one. There are a number of people who are still part of this, and are actively involved. But dans question is truly, what can we do in an Enterprise Fund version 2. 0 . The specific context of the nis left us in a position to deal with very effective and educated people who just didnt have Financial Institutions in place and Banking Sectors in place. Those were things that fortunately cam and a number of people who were on the boards of those funds were able to jumpstart. And usaids continued oversight of that has gone from just the ambassador being involved to having 1,001 questions asked of you. And when the Enterprise Fund started in 2011 and 12, after the arab spring, no one really knew what the relationship was going to be. And ill let jim and bo talk more about that. But i think the unique challenges that we had in the Enterprise Fund as a new, innovate tool, have grown over time. We have usaid has feed the future. Its got Development Credit authority. There is power africa. There are a lot of innovative tools, and ive actually moved overseas, and im working on Public Partnerships with the dutch government to look at other innovative ways to bring private sector in, so its not just a public set of funding that has to go in to jumpstart some of these economies. So, i mean, i would say that on a whole, they have been blissfully successful. There are a couple that were unfortunately had di minimus returns at the end of the day. But when you look at the actual facts of 1. 2 billion in financing going to ten Enterprise Funds, covering 19 or 14 countries, 6. 9 billion in private capital being leveraged from that 1. 2. And then 225 million being returned to treasury at the end of it. Thats a Successful Development program. And its wonderful that they were able to do that at the time. And the question is, what can we do to expand on that, and do something new in some of the newer countries . Great. Thank you. I want to skip over my bo and jim. And i want to ask kim davis to make some remarks. Shes the chair of the balticamerican freedom foundation. Hes also managing director and co chair of the charles man capital partners. But you had more importantly, you chaired the baltic Enterprise Fund, as well as you were the acting ceo of the check slovakian Enterprise Fund. How did you get those jobs . Because those arent paid jobs. You had a day job. How did you end up getting that phone call and why did you say yes . Well, the first phone call was to join the balticamerican Enterprise Fund. And i thought it would be a really interesting way to observe the transition of postsoviet countries. And so that was an easy yes. They needed people who had private equity experience, and i did that. The czechslovak experience arose because one of our other directors was part of the white house and part of the acting board when the first board ran into some trouble. And that director asked me to step in as the acting ceo for six months, which i did in 1996. And essentially shut down the czech operation and moved everything down to slovakia. Which was the only really business decision that was available to us at that time. I had a very funny meeting with the ambassador in the Czech Republic who said, im glad to meet you, and i hope i never see you again after you leave the Czech Republic and the fund is out. So that was not a particularly successful one. But i would say, in general, anybody who thinks that Enterprise Funds can only you know, will have a different distribution curve of investment success than in the private sector are missing the point. There will be some good deals and bad deals and good funds and bad funds. And we have to simply accept that as a matter of course. Dan, if i might, we had a challenge that was very, very different than the one that jim and bo does. And i think a much more receptive environment. But just to give you a sense, i think the balticamerican Enterprise Fund was successful. We started with 50 million in three countries. We made three very specific decisions. We were going to focus on the credit markets, we were not going to adopt a quota system. We were going to respond to market opportunities. And have we were going to invest a lot in building our staff as a real legacy, what we were going to leave behind. We ended up with two businesses, a Mortgage Business and Mezzanine Capital business. One of the mistakes people make is they think Enterprise Fund means being a private Equity Investor. I dont think thats true. Private equity in emerging markets with a fragile legal structure is difficult. Whereas i think the credit markets are more open to innovation and to some development tools. Our 50 million turned into 820 million invested capital, both with flows and capital we leveraged. We originated 20,000 mortgages and accomplished the first securitization of a mortgagebacked security in eastern europe. So, you know, for us and we ended up with 60 million. And you could say, gee, 60 million from 50 over ten years is not a particularly great internal rate of return. But given three countries and the 1998 russia crisis given our development objectives, our view was that if we focused on preservation of capital and modest returns, investing in the quality of our staff and leaving a legacy behind of a more developed Capital Market that we would have done our job. And were still at it now as a Legacy Foundation. So while i dont think that what we did is necessarily replicable in the same way in tunisia and egypt because the geopolitical environments are so different, i do think i would like to think that the balticamerican Enterprise Fund is at least an example of why the Enterprise Fund concept should have a second life. Perhaps with some different rules and different environments. But it is definitely a worthwhile endeavor, and the ability to Leverage Private sector volunteers, which we all are as Board Members with usaid and state department folks, as well as local governments and local citizens, i think is a wonderful model, public diplomacy. So kim, how important is it to have the right board . It is the number one and only thing. We were very lucky. We had six Board Members. We had never met each other. We had the same six Board Members from 1994 to 2007. We had a great initial chair, roz ridgeway under president reagan. The two most famous people in the baltics were Pope John Paul ii and president reagan. So we came into a pretty receptive environment. And roz was a great leader to have in that. But the board is everything. Because the board has to exercise real oversight. We had active committees. We didnt micro manage management, but we absolutely knew what they were doing all of the time. And i think that allowed us to change course when we had to, redirect resources when we had to, and innovate when we had to. Okay. So what about when you started making money, and what happened . Did the government say, what do i do with this money . How did they what was that conversation like . So we sold all of our businesses in 2007. So in 2007, we liquidated. We sold our Mezzanine Capital business to a hedge fund, and we sold our mortgage bank, which, by that time was a 140person soup to nuts from origination to servicing platform to an irish bank. And my friend paige and i had spirited conversations about what to do with all of our money. And ultimately, we sent 25 million back to the treasury, and we kept 35 million for our Legacy Foundation, which is hard at work as we speak. Okay. So can you just spend a minute more on the chezechoslovakia. How do they find you and what did you do . So the acting board asked me to step in as ceo. I happened to have some time. I was between sort of moves in my career and i had six months available. So i took the job and flew to prague. You know, i think thats a story of a board that came in 1993, when the countries were together, 1991, and decided that their job was to just invest in anything and everything in minority equity positions in a country where there was just no Legal Framework or cultural understanding of what a private Equity Investment was. And it was just a mess. I mean, they they lost i think they lost about 75 of their capital in the first two years. And, again, you know, ive been in this business my entire life. Ive made a lot of bad deals. You lose money, but they lost at a rate that was beyond normal. But kim, let me just quickly jump in and say, did it have a happy outcome . Well, we closed down the czech activity, moved everything into slovakia. And they did. They had a second go at it. I think they did some very good things in slovakia. There is a Legacy Foundation there. Its unfortunate that we lost our ability to continue in the Czech Republic. But there was just no there was no additional funding available, given the history. Okay. So its fair to say, it was somewhat turned around. Yeah, it was turned around in a much with a much smaller footprint. Thats the point i want people to come away with. That there were some hiccups. There were some interventions made, and then it had a pretty good turnaround outcome. Once we accepted the fact we lost 35 of our capital, we did good things with the 25 that was remaining. But to dans point, you know, again, people are going to lose money, youre going make bad deals. Youre going to get your hiccups. And you just have to learn how to absorb them and move on. And thats what we did. Okay. All right. So i want to just spend one more minute on history and then turn to the present, to jim and bo talking about the president. And then i want the four of my panelists to talk about the future. I just want to dwell just for a minute on the past with my friend paige. So paige, i think there are theres a historic you know, historic memory of the Enterprise Funds. Theres sort of a short list of complaints that some folks have. What if someone was here and said, what about that fund or this fund that i was unhappy about what happened here, whats your response to that . What would you say to some member of congress and say im happy about this fund or that fund and therefore we shouldnt do any more of these. Whats your response to that . David kohls will take all of those questions of the thats my response. I would say yes, there were hiccups. And a lot of funds the way they were liquidated at the end of the day, some had de minimus returns, the central asia fund, the slovak fund, the hungarian fund, and they just sort of morphed into either legacy funds to do something small. But the majority of them ended up making unbelievable returns. I mean, bulgaria, for example, although there were some concerns about it at the time, the Bulgaria Fund ended up walking away with 200 no, 422 million at the end of the day for the legacy fund. And they only had to return 27 million to the u. S. Government. Because the decision had been made at the time when congress thought these were just funds that they were going to grant out, that question was, do you return the liquidated assets, half of the liquidated assets to treasury, or are you able to just return half of the initial grant . But regardless, the u. S. Government got 225 million back from a Development Grant program. And thats just almost unheard of. That really is a broadly Successful Development program when youre returning money to its u. S. Government. So i would say that each issue, as kim mentioned, some of it were the board structure. They just werent structured well. And there were incentives set in each of the boards that should want be have been there, or were there for the wrong reasons. Or it just wasnt a friendly environment. And i think that, you know, jim and bo can talk a little bit more about the different environments that they are facing now versus what Ronald Reagan and the pope what kim faced in the baltics. A simpler time. A much simp