The unfortunate growth market of investing in refugees + building portfolios that value aging

It's Friday, March 13th. I'm Brian Walsh, and welcome to this Week in Impact, where I talk with Impact Alpha journalists and editors about some of the most interesting impact investing stories we featured this week. I'm joined once again by editor David Bank. We'll discuss. As Global displacements hit 122 million people, a new breed of investor is asking whether refugees are a burden or a business opportunity. Plus, this week's Agents of Impact Call made the case that aging isn't just a demographic shift. It's an investment framework. We'll recap what we learned. And finally, private prison stocks might look like a stable investment, but a guest post this week makes the case that the risks lurking beneath them are anything but. That's all coming up on this Week in Impact. Hi, David. Welcome back to the podcast. Happy Friday the 13th to you for the second month in a row.

0:00

I guess it's my lucky day, Brian.

0:55

Indeed. Well, first up, refugee finance. As global displacement hits record levels, the gap between available short term humanitarian funding and the scale of need keeps widening. As our Lucy Ngigi reported this week, a growing number of organizations are trying to fill a gap not with aid, but with investment. David, investing in refugees is a genuinely hard financing problem. Short time horizons, political volatility, populations that traditional lenders won't touch. So what's the case that some impact investors are making for investing in refugees?

0:57

Yeah, well, it's one of these unfortunate growth markets. You mentioned, 122 million people. I think that's just those displaced by violent conflict. And the total number of folks displaced around the world is even higher than that. And they're very highly skilled workers and professionals, in many cases living outside their home countries. And the opportunity really is to help them get back on their feet and support themselves and also to support the communities that they're coming into so that those relations can go better as well. So a lot of the old line humanitarian organizations are now spinning up venture funds and investment funds to try to tackle some of this with private investment, as you say, and to invest in companies run and started by refugees and also in ventures and enterprises in the communities where they're temporarily, we hope, living.

1:29

Right. So the underlying argument here is more of a reframe that refugees aren't a burden on their host economies. They're potential employees, suppliers, customers, and startup founders.

2:26

Yeah, and that's both to, you know, mitigate some of the conflict that happens, you know, in those host communities that might not want to take on the burden, but in fact are getting a little bit of a, you know, brain gain from having this population in their midst.

2:37

So walk me through an example of this. What are some of the kind of venture funds that have spun out by some of these aid organizations?

2:54

Well, none other than the UN High Commissioner on Refugees has a Climate Resilience fund to support refugees facing climate related shocks. So there's an outfit in Uganda which has the largest number of displaced people in Africa that's coming from the DRC and other places and they get collateral free loans. Refu Aid, which is based in the UK also offers donor funding and other types of capital to lend to refugees for new skills. Lucy keyed on Igravity, which is a venture style fund that invests in businesses and technologies in East Africa and the Middle East, I think with mostly support from the Danish Refugee Council. And their portfolio includes businesses that serve, train and hire refugees. International Rescue Committee this year launched Air Bell Ventures and it invests in new technologies like predictive analytics for food insecurity and local language voice based AI to improve data collection. So kind of a level up from direct aid and into more kind of analytics and technology services.

3:01

All right, well this is a topic that's becoming unfortunately increasingly relevant. You can read Lucy's piece on Refugee lens investors on impactalpha.com there's also a link in our show Notes. Later on we'll look at why stocks in private prisons may be a much riskier investment than their federal contracts suggest. But first, more than a third of Americans are over 50, representing what could be the third largest economy in the world. This week's Agents of Impact call made the case that it's not just a demographic fact, it's an investment thesis. When we come back, sign up for

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4:45

Next up, aging as an asset class. David Building an investment portfolio that makes aging an opportunity rather than a problem to be managed to was the topic of this week's Agents of Impact call. Now David, you moderated the call. What's the investment case for aging?

5:07

Well, we keyed on next 50. It's a foundation out of Denver that's all around supporting and valuing aging and they are committing their entire, I think $265 million endowment to invest in that as well as their grant making and other activities. And so they enlisted JP Morgan Chase to construct A portfolio. So the question is, what is a portfol that values and supports aging? And it's quite an interesting exercise when you get into it. Healthcare, you could imagine, you know, gets a lot of attention and, you know, health expenses are rising and older adults account for a big percentage of that. So that's a growth industry in an aging society. But there's lots of things that actually support healthy aging have really nothing to do with healthcare. So think grocery delivery services and that allow folks to stay in their home without having to haul the grocery bags up the stairs. Or mobility autonomous vehicles that are adapted for wheelchairs, for example, that will help older folks get around more cheaply, more effectively over time. And so there's all kinds of investments that will be needed to support a society where there's a growing number of older adults. But that doesn't mean that it's all disability and decline. It may mean people living the kinds of lives, you know, they want to live for longer, so longer, healthier lives, not just disability and decline. Here's Preeti Bhattachary from JPMorgan Chase.

5:23

But it's not just about health care products. It's also about grocery delivery services which help older adults age in place. It's about telecommunications and broadband which again help create social connectivity for older adults. It's about affordable housing. There is a whole variety of kind of diversified product lines you can think about as being good products and services.

6:55

All right, so David, what else do we learn about aging as an investment framework?

7:15

One of the big themes was about aging population in the workforce. And there are some statistics recently about the average age of retirement going up and people staying longer in the workforce. Now that could be both by necessity people have to work longer. It could also be by choice as people choose to work longer. Gillian Kelly at the Next 50 foundation talked about a reframe of this so called Silver Tsunami.

7:19

And so we're seeing this, what people, some people call the Silver Tsunami. And we like to reframe that as an example of one of the narrative changes. Because looking at the Silver tsunami as older people coming in and sort of this, this wave crashing over us and some of the negative and catastrophic vibes that that brings along. Sure, we know that older adults need more resources in healthcare and things like that, but they also are a really powerful economic force. They're a powerful force in the workforce. They have a lot to bring to our country. And so we're trying to really change the narrative around. Okay, this is this, this big demographic shift that's going to be so catastrophic to what are the opportunities? And why is our country not currently set up in a way that will offer older adults the things that they need as they age, knowing that this change is happening?

7:48

Yeah, there's so much nuance in this topic. There's a kind of fine line between pro aging investments and company services that make aging work better for folks and what might be called sort of anti aging, the live forever or anti aging creams that try to hide aging or reject aging. But you do have to think through all the implications of what it means to have so many more older folks. Tracy Chadwell from 1843 Capital Venture capital firm talks about investing in the social infrastructure needed for the hundred plus lifespan.

8:46

And it's really funny that you started this call with the when I'm 64 song, because when you think about it, 64 now is not old. You know, back when the song was written, that was sort of he was you're going to leave me because I'm disabled and can no longer have fun anymore. And that's just not true. You know, we have 100,000 people that are over the age of 100 now, which is just incredible. So your opportunity to get to 100 or even 105 or 120 is markedly increased than it ever has been before. And I think most people, when you ask them if they want to live past 100, they will say no. But if you ask them, do you want to live a full, healthy life until your life is over, I think most people would say yes.

9:27

Yes, indeed. That's why aging is an investment opportunity and not just a problem to be managed.

10:10

Well put, Brian. And I'll remember that with my aches and pains.

10:15

Fair enough. Well, you can find a full recap and watch a full replay of the Agents of Impact Call on Aging on impactalpha.com there's also a link in our show Notes coming up. Congress last year allocated $45 billion in new detention funding. While Wall street initially liked what it heard, a guest post this week walks through the legal exposure, governance risk, and political volatility hid underneath stocks in private prison companies. Finally this week, profits and Punishment. David we published a guest post from Andy Behar, CEO of the shareholder advocacy nonprofit as yous Sow on the Hidden Risks Inside Investments in Private Prisons. Now, many people may not realize that two of the US's largest private prison companies are actually publicly listed stocks appearing in dozens of ETFs and index funds in people's retirement accounts. So with last year's massive new federal funding for detention centers seems like a promising economic boom for these investments. There are some risks that Behar pointed out. What are those risks, David?

10:19

Yeah, private prisons turned out to be one of those, you know, buy on the rumor, sell on the news kind of stocks. And Corecivic and Geo Group, the two best known private prisons. And as you said, publicly listed equities, you know, really soared when President Trump was elected at the end of 2024. And they appear to get a big boost in that one big beautiful bill as well, which had a lot of money for immigration detention facilities. And on the other hand, stocks have been floating downward for most of 2025 and this year. And it's classic kind of policy risk. Actually, there's not as many immigrants in detention as was expected. There are some facilities sitting empty. Andy Behar, as you sow, talks about the kinds of risks that investors face. Concentrated customer exposure, high sensitivity to electoral outcomes, recurring litigation tied to labor practices and detainee treatment. There's a long litany of lawsuits against both of those companies on both the employer side and on the detainee side. And so even for investors who are looking for just pure returns may think twice about private prison stocks.

11:19

Yeah, indeed. Especially with the federal government looking to build its own detention centers and not outsource it to private companies, that also has had an impact on the stock performance of these companies.

12:39

Yeah. And for investors who want to check their ETFs or their mutual funds as you so runs a service, go to prisonfreefunds.org and type your fund ticker or name into the search and you'll see whether your ETF or mutual fund includes the so called prison industrial complex stocks.

12:50

All right, well, you can read Andre Behar's full guest post on private prison investment risks on impactalpha.com there's also a link in our show notes. But for now, that's going to do it for this episode of this week in impact. Thank you, David.

13:10

Thank you, Brian.

13:24

And thank you all for listening. This week in Impact is a production of Impact Alpha and part of the Impact Alpha podcast network, smart conversations by and for Impact Investing professionals. For exclusive stories and insights about the world of impact investing and sustainable finance, join thousands of other agents of Impact by subscribing. Just go to impactalpha.com subscribe for full access. Thanks as always to our producer extraordinaire Isaac Silk, who is going to be taking the next two weeks off to celebrate his honeymoon. Congratulations, Isaac. So we will be taking a break, brief break and we will be back in your feed on Friday, April 3. For David Bank, I'm Brian Walsh, managing director of the impact advisory firm Human Nature. We'll see you on April 3rd for more impact.

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