Yogurt Maker Plans Social-Mission Mutual Fund

The yogurt producer Danone will offer its investors a chance to support a mutual fund that will supply low-cost, extra-nutritious yogurt to villagers in Asia and Africa, reports Fortune.

Danone said it hopes to raise $135-million through the fund, which expects an annual return of around 4 percent, comparable to a standard money-market account. The proceeds will help construct plants in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Madagascar that will produce fortified yogurt, which would be distributed among the rural poor.

One plant — financed in part through the Grameen Bank, a micro-finance group whose founder won the Nobel Peace Prize last year — already exists in Bangladesh. Danone has given its stock-holding employees the right to forgo dividends in exchange for options on the social mutual fund instead. Thirty percent of them have chosen to do so.

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