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Blue Like an Orange Sustainable Capital
Bertrand Badré's Blue Like an Orange targets $300M for Latin American sustainability-linked credit, bridging development finance and private equity...
Blue Like an Orange Sustainable Capital
Blue Like an Orange Sustainable Capital was founded in 2017 by Bertrand Badré, the former CFO of the World Bank Group, and Rashad Kaldany, a former senior executive at the International Finance Corporation. The firm operates as an investment manager focused exclusively on Latin America and the Caribbean, seeking market-rate returns while advancing measurable social and environmental outcomes. Badré's public departure from the World Bank — and his subsequent book 'Can Finance Save the World?' — frames the firm's thesis that institutional capital can bridge the gap between philanthropy and commercial lending in emerging markets. The firm deploys mezzanine debt and structured equity across five core sectors: financial inclusion, healthcare, education, sustainable agriculture, and essential infrastructure. Blue Like an Orange targets mid-market companies needing $10 million to $30 million in catalytic capital — the space just beyond microfinance but too small or illiquid for conventional private credit. Its portfolio includes a structured credit facility to Grupo Monge, a Central American retailer expanding digital financial services, and an investment in Sucafina, a sustainable coffee supply-chain operator active across East Africa and Latin America (per the firm's official communications). Geographically, the firm concentrates on Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Mexico, with additional coverage in Central America and the Caribbean. The firm operates from New York, with investment offices in São Paulo, Lima, and Bogotá. Headcount remains lean, reflecting its concentrated portfolio approach. The team blends emerging-markets private credit veterans with development-finance professionals, including Partner Vinicius Barcelos in São Paulo and Partner Luis Fernando Laranja leading sustainability integration from Bogotá. As of early 2024, the firm was deploying its first fund and exploring a second vintage, signaling early traction with development-finance institutions, family offices, and European institutional LPs seeking impact-aligned exposure to Latin American lower-mid-market credits (per the firm's investor communications). Structurally, Blue Like an Orange occupies a narrow lane — it competes neither with pure impact-first lenders nor with return-maximizing private-credit funds. Its capital is patient enough to accept sub-institutional liquidity premiums, but disciplined enough to require risk-adjusted market-rate returns. That hybrid mandate, backed by a former World Bank CFO and IFC investment leadership, gives the firm unusual access to both multilateral co-investors and commercial limited partners seeking an impact-credit vehicle built from the ground up.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2017
AUM
$200M–$400M (Altss estimate)
Location
Region
Latin America
Country
United States
City
New York
Corporate office
New York, NY, United States
Additional offices
São Paulo, Brazil · Lima, Peru · Bogotá, Colombia
Principals
Bertrand Badré
CEO and Founding Partner
Rashad Kaldany
Partner and CIO
Vinicius Barcelos
Partner, Head of Brazil
Luis Fernando Laranja
Partner, Head of Sustainability
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Blue Like an Orange?
CEO and Founding Partner Bertrand Badré sets firm strategy and chairs the investment committee. CIO and Partner Rashad Kaldany leads deal origination and credit underwriting, drawing on his two decades at the IFC. Vinicius Barcelos, Partner and Head of Brazil, runs Latin America's largest local office and leads on-the-ground sourcing across the southern cone.
What explains the firm's unusual name?
The name comes from a line in Paul Éluard's surrealist poem 'La Terre est bleue comme une orange' — 'The earth is blue like an orange.' Bertrand Badré has cited the phrase as capturing the firm's goal of making the impossible ordinary: generating market-rate financial returns while producing measurable, independently verified social and environmental outcomes in historically underserved markets.
How does Blue Like an Orange source deals?
The firm sources through its local offices in São Paulo, Lima, and Bogotá, leveraging the in-country networks of its investment partners. Importantly, Badré and Kaldany's relationships at the World Bank, IFC, and regional development banks open pipeline from multilaterals and local financial institutions that typically do not compete for private-equity-style capital. The firm also co-invests alongside DFIs on select transactions.
What is the firm's actual return target?
Blue Like an Orange targets market-rate, risk-adjusted returns — not concessionary finance. While the firm does not publicly disclose its net IRR target, it structures mezzanine and structured equity with coupon and equity-kicker profiles consistent with emerging-market private credit, aiming for returns competitive with lower-mid-market Latin American debt funds.
Does the firm commit to SDG-specific reporting?
Yes. Every investment requires upfront selection of relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals, with ongoing impact metrics tracked and reported to LPs. The firm has positioned this as a binding investment discipline, not a marketing overlay — its sustainability partner sits on the investment committee and has authority to reject deals on impact grounds.
Is Blue Like an Orange a single family office or a fund manager?
Blue Like an Orange is a third-party fund manager, not a family office. It raises capital from development-finance institutions, European pension funds, family offices, and institutional investors. Its founding partners are former multilateral development bank executives, not wealth principals.
Which Latin American markets does the firm actively avoid?
The firm has publicly stated it does not invest in countries under active multilateral sanctions or where governance failures make SDG-compliant lending structurally impossible. Specifically, it has avoided Venezuela throughout its fund life, and certain smaller Caribbean nations fall outside its investable universe due to limited deal flow and structural currency risk.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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