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The Chief Executive Officer of BEIGE Capital, Mr Mike Nyinaku, has encouraged stakeholders in the country to help build financial institutions that have the capacity to provide what he calls, �patient capital� to facilitate the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Speaking at the TEDx Accra forum on the theme, �Finance or Crush�, Mr Nyinaku explained that financing for SMEs was a major challenge in Ghana. �This is because we don�t have a lot of development finance institutions in our country,� he said. Development finance institutions are typically the kind of institutions that provide growth capital which is the type of capital that SMEs need to propel their business. Universal banks are at the end of the finance chain because they primarily offer short-term funding which is not usually suitable for business development at the early stages of an enterprise. The programme The TEDx Programme is designed to help communities, organisations and individuals to spark conversations and connections through local like-minded experiences. Addressing an audience of budding entrepreneurs on financing for their businesses, Mr Nyinaku said most of the businesses in the country had not lived to fulfil their full potential to allow the original owners to reap substantially from their investments. �Most of these owners are still striving to achieve sustainability for their business, hence do not have too much idle cash to channel into private equity,� he stated. In the advanced countries, however, a lot of businesses have fully outlived their youthful lives and original owners, through the stock exchange and other means have diversified their interests and recouped their initial investment. �Such entrepreneurs have the luxury of channelling their funds into other investments. This is one of the reasons there are more private equity firms in the West than in Ghana,� he explained. Mr Nyinaku therefore, advised the young business people to keep in mind that funding was not charity and for anyone to decide to invest in their businesses, there should be something in it for them. �It is easy for investors to be attracted to you when you have some history of positive performance because it gives them an indication of what the future could be. Not having a good record of your history or not having any history at all makes your pitch weak,� he stated.