Gert Kersten provided feedback on the funding of Match Maker Associates

About the organisation

Match Maker Associates is a well known and highly valued consultancy firm in the East African development sector. It is owned by 2 Tanzanian and 1 Dutch consultancy professionals. Services are value chain analysis, feasibility studies, market studies, financial brokerage etc. Target groups are mostly farmer cooperatives and fishermen cooperatives and clients are local and international NGOs.

The social impact of MatchMaker is:

- local employment and/or income generation
- community involvement
- transfer of knowledge and skills

Business case

According to the original business caseof Match Maker Associates Gert Kersten was asked:

- to give feedback on the Fund business plan 

- to co create the procedure for due diligence

- to set credit lending structure and procedures for "character based" loans

During a meeting in The Netherlands, it became clear that there was a more urgent need to start drafting the Fund Private Placement Memorandum (PPM).

The experience and expertise of Gert Kersten was very usable to work on this business case. He has audited a number of real estate, equity and fixed income fund. Therefore he was familiar with Private Placement Memoranda, Fund structure, Fund Governance etc. Also involvement in audits of lending business and being familiar with credit procedures worked in his advantage. Even Tanzania wasn't totally new to him, he once worked at a hospital in the more rural areas of Tanzania. Moreover, by assisting Match Maker Associates Gert really could put his knowledge on stake.

Results
 
Were to start...
In a first phone call (before the exchange) the director of MMA and Gert agreed that Match Maker Associates would send a draft version of the business case to review. Roughly 7 weeks before Gert was going to Tanzania  they were able to meet each other in The Netherlands. During this meeting they discussed the results of the business case review and agreed on the deliverables and expectations. 2 weeks before the start of the programme ,the last details were discussed in a telephone conference. Both parties agreed that there was sufficient alignment and confidence, and decided to continue the cooperation.          


  
Advice
The following deliverables (including their purpose) are drafted in close cooperation with the company's  employees and the director:

•          Private Placing Memorandum

•          Review and (slight) revision of the Fund Model

•          PowerPoint presentation of the Fund

•          Loan Application Process (process flow chart), including narratives

•          Loan Authorization Matrix

•          Loan Approval Form

•          Loan Book (example)

•          Credit Committee Charter