Indigenous Projects Outperform. The Market Hasn't Asked Why.

The City of London manages approximately 13% of global assets under management, representing an estimated 25 to 30% of internationally movable capital.

When Sean Willy, President and CEO of the Des Nedhe Group, sat down with Professor Michael Mainelli, founder of Z/Yen (the City's leading commercial think tank) and Emeritus Gresham Professor of Commerce, at the London Stock Exchange during the Canadian Indigenous Investment Summit, the conversation turned to a question institutional investors rarely ask: why do Indigenous-partnered projects consistently outperform?

Sean Willy leads English River First Nation's economic development corporation, which has grown from a single construction business into a portfolio of 24 companies spanning resources, construction, defence, and property development across North America.

Des Nedhe now operates with an independent board of directors, majority female and majority Indigenous, and is actively engaging European investors, particularly in the defence sector.

Willy describes the deal structures that have enabled Indigenous-led growth, including free-carry equity participation models where project proponents structure Indigenous involvement without requiring capital contributions from the First Nation partner.

Professor Mainelli, who hosted the inaugural Canadian Indigenous Investment Summit at Mansion House during his year as the 695th Lord Mayor of the City of London, brings over three decades of commercial analysis in the Square Mile through Z/Yen.

He argues that Indigenous governance models, with their emphasis on multi-generational stewardship and stakeholder alignment, are now finding support in mainstream economic theory, particularly through the concept of land value capture.

His comparison of the City of London Corporation, the world's oldest continuous democratic cooperative dating to 640 AD, with First Nations governance structures offers a framework that will resonate with European institutional audiences.

The conversation also examines how new capital infrastructure, including the federal Indigenous Loan Guarantee Programme (now CAD 10 billion), provincial guarantee programmes, the Canada Infrastructure Bank, and the First Nations Finance Authority, has created systematic mechanisms for Indigenous equity participation at an institutional scale.

Recorded live at the City of London during the third annual Canadian Indigenous Investment Summit.