Southwick Social Ventures

In 2021, the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team had found a promising potential investment in Southwick Social Ventures (SSV), a worker and management-owned trouser manufacturer. With a 100% immigrant workforce, the co-operative was focused on reviving manufacturing in Lowell, Massachusetts, a city that was once an economic hub but had witnessed many of its factories shut and their activities moved to lower-cost locations abroad. The student team was charged with recommending deal terms to an independent investment committee whose members had deep experience in the impact investment field. The students needed to develop a proposal that would both yield an acceptable financial return to the fund and simultaneously provide founder-friendly terms to SSV which would allow the company to pursue its economic development agenda.