(Bloomberg) -- Inter-American Investment Corp. is looking to boost its workforce by as many as 200 positions over the coming years as the multilateral lender works on a capital increase proposal.

IDB Invest, which provides financial services to companies in Latin America and the Caribbean, is seeking to expand in areas including equity financing, local-currency capabilities as well as in corporate advisory services, Chief Executive Officer James Scriven said in an interview Thursday. 

The Washington-based lender, which held its annual conference earlier this month, has over 440 employees, according to its 2022 annual report.

IDB Invest is targeting $15 billion to $17 billion of deployed financing to companies in the region per year, up from a range of $5 billion to $7 billion in previous years, a company representative said in an emailed statement, referring to capital increase scenarios currently under discussion. The lender’s total capital is about $3 billion, according to an investor presentation.

“I’ve been in this business for 20 years and I’ve seen many capital increases. I’ve never seen one so strongly, unanimously supportive,” said Scriven. “If we double our capital, we can do much more than double our lending.”

“The multilateral development banks have been publicly criticized for not taking enough risk. And that is, for the most part, true,” Scriven said. In addition to working on details of a capital increase, the lender is also discussing, with its shareholders, a more flexible risk appetite framework, he added.

Prior to the UK joining earlier this month, the US represented 14.9% of IDB’s voting power — more than any other country — followed by Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, according to the presentation. China held 5.3% of voting power. 

IDB Invest provided approximately $8.3 billion in financing in 2022, which included $3.1 billion in resources mobilized from investors. Volumes could increase significantly under a potential new model, under which the lender would have improved ability to market deals it originates to a wider group of buyers.

“We’ll be about a call to action for Wall Street. We’re going to be a bigger client for them in the future,” Scriven said.

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