Responsible Investor

the new “power brokers” to treble their assets from $12 trillion at the end of last year to $32.3 trillion (€20.5 trillion) in five years.
Phaunos Timber Fund, the closed-ended investment company established to invest in global timberland and timber related assets has successfully raised approximately $33m before expenses through a placing with institutional investors.
AXess ATS (Alternative Trading System), a broker neutral electronic marketplace for private placement offerings and secondary trading of restricted and illiquid securities in the responsible investment arena is scheduled to launch later this year. The US-based exchange aims to give buy and sell-side clients a centralized marketplace in which to raise capital, source deal flow and anonymously transact in areas such as carbon offset project finance, block trading liquidity of environmental and SRI public equities and global microfinance offerings.
US federal courts have said a class-action lawsuit filed by the $15.2bn Louisiana Teachers’ Retirement System against Pfizer, the US pharmaceutical giant can proceed, but without charges of market manipulation, reports Pensions & Investments. The suit claims that Pfizer concealed the results of three medical studies concerning its Celebrex and Bextra drugs to protect its share price.
Renaissance Capital, the US IPO specialist, has reportedly launched an index to measure the performance of companies just taken public that offer solutions to environmental problems. Renaissance told Pensions & Investments that the impetus for the index came Renaissance noticed high returns for newly public alternative energy companies. The Green IPO Index segments include alternative energy, recycling, conservation, clean transport, energy efficiency and green enabling technologies.

Jay Powell, a former partner of Carlyle Group, the US private equity house, and founder of Severn Capital Partners, has joined the Global Environment Fund as a managing director. Powell will be one of four managing directors working on a $350m (€223m) fund currently in the fundraising stage that will invest in post start-up clean technology companies based in North America.
EIRIS, the ethical research advisory group, says over a third (35.6%) of the world’s 300 largest companies in the FTSE All World Index bear high or very high impact concerns over direct and indirect carbon emissions. In a report, title: “The state we’re in: global corporate response to climate change and the implications for investors,” Eiris finds that only 25% of the index publish long-term strategic targets to reduce emissions and only 14% link board remuneration to climate change strategies.
Maplecroft, the risk mapping company, has published a new report looking at climate change risks in every country around the world. The report includes a unique risk index, which measures vulnerability to climate change at a sub-national level. The report shows that the highest levels of climate change vulnerability are located in middle and eastern Africa and southern Asia.
Crédit Agricole Asset Management (CAAM) has launched CAAM Funds Global Agriculture, which invests at least two thirds of its assets in a selection of international equities issued by companies active in the farming sectors. Nicolas Fragneau, the fund’s manager, said: “We believe that the situation of imbalance between supply and demand is likely to last as it is mainly driven by demographic trends. This is why we try to identify innovative companies which aim at improving long-term agricultural productivity.”

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