BNP Paribas spins off €437m AUM clean energy fund management team

The asset management arm of French banking giant BNP Paribas, BNP Paribas Investment Partners, has spun off its five-year-old, €437m assets-under-management clean energy investment team.
BNP Paribas Clean Energy Partners will now be called Glennmont Partners and be headed by existing CEO Joost Bergsma.
Dutch pension funds PGGM and Grafische Bedrijven were among the investors in the team’s Clean Energy Fund in 2009.
The firm’s portfolio includes 165MW of solar, 150MW of wind and 38MW of biomass capacity across Europe.
BNP Paribas will remain in an investor in the London-based outfit and will continue to support it via a distribution agreement. All of its clean energy fund management team will move to Glennmont as part of the deal.
The team was formed in 2007, when Bergsma, Peter Dickson and Scott Lawrence formed the renewable energy investment team at ABN AMRO Asset Management. Francesco Cacciabue joined the team in 2009.Bergsma said the move was “driven by an opportunity to deliver further growth in the rapidly growing alternative energy sector”.
Independence would mean executives’ interests would be more aligned with those of its investors through long term equity ownership.

BNP Paribas currently has a stake of 25.2% in Impax Asset Management, the AIM-listed environmental investment house. Former Guy de Froment, the former Chairman and CEO of Paribas Asset Management, is a non-executive director at Impax.

Meanwhile, BNP Paribas Investment Partners, which has €502bn in assets under management and is the sixth largest asset manager in Europe, last month announced that it has become a signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). It would be incorporating environmental, social and governance standards in its investments, starting with open-ended funds.

It said: “The implementation of ESG standards provides a concrete opportunity for investors to contribute to, and benefit from, a more responsible economy, while addressing the reputational and financial risks of controversial holdings.”