Emergent Asset Management

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Land Deal Brief: EmVest Asset Management in Matuba, Mozambique
EmVest Asset Management is a joint venture between Emergent Asset Management and Grainvest, a subsidiary of the RussellStone Group. Based out of Pretoria, South Africa, EmVest operates the African Land Fund (ALF) and lists social responsibility as a guiding tenet of its investment strategy, citing a desire to bring “economic uplift to communities through commercially viable, first world practices.”
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Land Deal Brief: Deciphering Emergent’s Investments in Africa
Emergent Asset Management (Emergent), a private limited liability company based in the UK and minority owned by Toronto Dominion Bank, claims to be managing the largest agricultural fund in Africa. Using private equity to invest in industrial agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa, Emergent is however, a prime example of the troublesome rise in speculative funds that are investing in African agricultural land.

News Articles

AP News
A Look at College Investments that have been Questioned
Collin BinkleyBOSTON (AP) — Some of the nation's top universities have drawn criticism for making investments in certain industries that activists say run counter to the schools' mission.Many financial experts don't see a problem, contending that endowments have a duty to make sound financial decisions above all else.Colleges are split. Some have stopped investing in industries such as fossil fuels or prisons or have opted to invest in mutual funds billed as "socially responsible." Others put few restrictions on their investments.A look at some of the investments that have stirred debate:
In These Times
Vanderbilt Out of Africa
Tennessee students win a divestment fight–even though the school won’t admit it. In 2011, In These Times reported on the land grabs sweeping the Global South as wealthy investors look to cash in on rising food prices. Among those who stand to profit from such land grabs—which displace impoverished communities in Africa and Asia and threaten their access to affordable food and water—are a number of U.S.
Telluride Inside and Out
Earth Matters: Land Grabs
This month, responding to campus activists who have been working on the issue for over a year, Vanderbilt University divested from “land grabbing,” withdrawing a $26 million investment in EMVest, a company that has been buying agricultural properties in Africa and converting them into large-scale commercial farms that grow food for export. (See Oakland Institute’s press release.)This is a small, but very important step, indicative of the increased recognition of the problem of land grabs.
Orbis
Occupy Vanderbilt Wants Answers from Administration
Occupy Vanderbilt has sprung up seemingly from no-where. But there’s a story to how those students got angry and decided to take a stand. The students’ seven months of investigation into Vanderbilt’s investment with EMVest, along with years of investigation into Vanderbilt’s investments in HEI Hotels & Resorts, play a large role in that.Here’s a recap.