Employment, economic growth and self-reliance are the appetites of every country. Small enterprise development is seen as an effective solution towards this goal depending on the availability of resources. Private equity finance is one of the key resources to enterprise development in a country. International case studies have shown that private equity finance can lead to enterprise development in a country. The aim of the study is to determine the contribution of private equity finance to enterprise development in South Africa. In order to get views from other role players in the private equity finance market, questionnaires were distributed to 200 private equity finance players and the response rate was 39%. The sample size comprised 61.5% males and 38.5% females. The majority of the participants were in the age group 25–34 and constituted 53% of the respondents, whilst those aged 35–49 years constituted 35.9%. A smaller number of respondents were in the age group 18–24 and 50 and above, which both comprised 11.5% as an aggregate. The results revealed that there is a positive correlation between enterprise development and private equity capital with 83% of the respondents agreeing and strongly agreeing that the business skills and expertise brought by private equity investors increase business performance. Of the respondents, 74.4% strongly agree and agree with the notion that most Small and Medium Enterprises do need the intervention of private equity investors. It is recommended that the government, through relevant legislation, needs to promote and encourage private equity investment. Some form of private equity investment such as angel investment needs to be formalized, as is available in other countries such as the United States of America and some countries in Europe. / MBA. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2010.

At the beginning of the 21st century the public interest in environmental and social sustainability, and corporate governance grew exponentially fuelled by recurring ecological and financial crises. The market demand for cleaner production and corporate transparency created opportunities for sustainability entrepreneurs in a variety of industries, including financial markets and investment management. An increasing number of financial institutions across the world now offer ethical or socially responsible products to meet the environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspirations of their clients. In the US, according to the Social Investment Forum (SIF), responsible investment (RI) assets reached US$ 2,29 trillion in 2007 (Mitchell, 2008). The European Sustainable Investment Forum (EuroSIF) estimated that total European SRI assets reached EUR 5 trillion in 2009 (Wheelan, 2010). In June 2011 the International Finance Corporation (IFC) reported that at the end of 2010 professional sustainable investment under management in South Africa approximately equalled US$ 122,6 billion (IFC, 2011:44). The statistics describing the rapid growth in the ESG-type investments are, however, complicated by the variety of names and definitions used to describe this emerging type of investment and a general market uncertainty about what constitutes the practice of RI. The purpose of this case study is to better understand responsible investment principles and practice as seen through the eyes of a South African private equity fund, which specializes in clean technology.