Happy returns

“BACKING someone to live,” is how Leapfrog Investment's first deal is described by Jim Roth, the co-founder of the “profit with purpose” private-equity firm. That was two years ago, a $6.7m stake in AllLife, a South African firm that provides life insurance to people with AIDS and infected with HIV, subject only to the condition that they submit to regular blood tests to prove they are taking their life-saving anti-retroviral drugs.

“This provides cover to people whom other insurers shun, makes it possible for them to get other financial services like a mortgage, and is highly profitable,” says Mr Roth. Other microinsurance investments have followed, in Kenya and, this week, in an Indian firm called Shiram that distributes savings, insurance and investment products to millions of poor people.