Robert Koenigsberger
Having a sense of mission is a really good filter for what you do and what you don't do
Robert Koenigsberger is a financier who has pioneered investment in private companies in emerging markets and who has funded landmark environmental lawsuits on a historic scale
“I was in emerging markets before they emerged,” jokes Robert Koenigsberger. “It was the pioneer days, the mid to late 1980s, with a bunch of countries in default, and banks that were holding defaulted assets. It was hardly an asset class.”
The financier has specialised in using private capital investment to help transform emerging economies internationally, largely in South and Central America. “Sometimes I’ve had to pinch myself, sitting in a meeting with a finance minister talking about debt and restructuring,” he says, “because my undergraduate and graduate theses were on the historical origins and implications of the Latin American debt crisis.”
Sometimes I’ve had to pinch myself, sitting in a meeting with a finance minister talking about debt and restructuring
Koenigsberger’s initial curiosity about the region came from his own heritage. “One side of my family is from Guatemala; my father was third generation born there. So I had an interest in learning more about Latin America, and I happened to be at an institution, the University of California San Diego, that was very strong on Latin American studies.”
Koenigsberger admits that as a teenager he failed to realise that his chosen university didn’t actually offer a straightforward business degree (he amassed more qualifications, including an MBA, later). “I have a different perspective, that comes from Latin American studies, political science and history,” he says. “Sitting in meetings in Argentina or in Istanbul, you understand a little more of where people are coming from, and why.”
Impact in emerging markets
In 1998, Koenigsberger founded Gramercy Funds Management, whose investments frequently take the form of lending to private companies – often family-owned – in developing economies where banks, governments and other lenders are unwilling or unable to invest. “With private debt as the tool, we're able to go in and partner with families,” he says. “We've been able to be a stable source of capital, with certainty of execution. We're seen as a reliable and trustworthy counterparty – and that is invaluable to us when we think about being a perpetuity. If you only go in and maximise your profit one time, then you don't get access to those people and that deal flow ever again.”
Gramercy’s approach has included bringing robust, yet adaptive, ESG standards into the businesses it lends to in emerging markets, creating a ripple of benefits for workforces and wider communities. “We can say, ‘You do A, B and C, we'll provide the capital’, which moves a company in the desired direction,” says Koenigsberger. “With ESG, in developed markets, it’s ‘Unless you're a 10, we don't give you the capital’. With ESG in emerging markets, you can take someone from a two to a five and beyond – and that's super impactful.”
A sense of mission
Gramercy adheres to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, and offers significant philanthropic support to a wide range of initiatives, including Ghana’s Right to Dream, an educational foundation anchored to football. Koenigsberger also takes a keen interest in higher education, and sits on multiple school and university boards.
When we think about corporate responsibility, what we're doing has to be genuine. We don't do ESG just so we can check the box
Koenigsberger believes responsible business practices are best understood as win-win, and that they collapse when reduced to a box-ticking exercise. “Our mission is to have a positive impact: on the well-being of our clients, our portfolio investments (and their communities) and our team members alike,” he says. “When we think about corporate responsibility, what we're doing has to be genuine. We don't do ESG just so we can check the box. For us, ESG is a credit metric; businesses that adhere to those principles have proven to be better credits.”
He gives the example of a large, family-owned ready-mix concrete business in Turkey that Gramercy stepped in to support at a time of national financial uncertainty in 2018. “We said to the patriarch: ‘We're willing to provide capital, but you also have to commit to evolving your company. Your entire family's future is on your back, so you need to professionalise. Putting environmental, social and governance policies in place is good for you, your business and your family’. So you anchor conversations on the win, as opposed to simply quid pro quo, because you get genuine outcomes when people are truly committed.” In this case, the ESG implementation led to an IPO in 2021.
Making history in environmental litigation
Beyond company investments, Gramercy has made headlines in recent years for funding class-action lawsuits at scale. “The litigation finance transactions that we've been involved in tend to be later stage,” says Koenigsberger. “It always takes longer than people think, and pools of capital that have been raised around transactions tend to have fuses. When those fuses are near their end, and you have a good law firm and you've got a good case, that’s where we've been interested.”
There’s the financial logic, but, given that Koenigsberger has put his weight behind environmental lawsuits on behalf of communities at such a scale, to what extent does his personal passion to see justice done for claimants come into play? “When you see a litigation that's consistent with the well-being of the plaintiffs that you're lending to and their communities, that's a lot easier than [funding] two big personalities fighting over something where, whoever wins, there's no impact externally,” he explains. “The good thing about having a sense of mission is that it becomes a really good filter for what you do and what you don't do.”
