Time for a Holiday

As the COVID-19 pandemic started to spread across the African continent, we had to take action to protect our Charm. We knew that our two partner companies would struggle to repay and that their customers would be badly hit as lock downs prevented them from working or forced them to close down their microbusinesses. Whilst our investor base is incredibly socially motivated and understanding, we also did not want to disappoint them and miss any repayments while we are still so young as a company.

We came up with a solution that worked for the investors and the borrowers. We spoke with the team at Energy4Impact and received approval to re-purpose an existing grant we had secured from them. We then offered to pause the loans with our borrowers for three months under the provision that they would extend the repayment holiday, with no additional interest charges, to their customers as well. End users would not feel pressure to repay whilst enjoying access to free solar electricity for three months. In this way, we could avoid over indebting our partner companies as well as their end users through the toughest and most uncertain part of the pandemic.

We used the Energy4Impact capital to repay our investors for that quarter’s payment in order to stay on track and avoid any delinquency or default. The next quarter of repayments for both investees came in on time in July, so our repayments remain on schedule.

An important challenge for us as a business is staying true to our vision through even the most daunting global problems, whilst safeguarding both our investors and borrowers. This was the first of many challenges that we have faced in the “new world” under COVID-19, and we are braced and ready to keep innovating to ensure that we keep moving forwards together in the face of adversity!