Daily ESG Briefing: Victory Hill latest to mull IPO of green infra vehicle

Private equity house Victory Hill Capital Group plans to float its Global Sustainable Energy Opportunities arm, which invests in green energy infrastructure – predominantly in developed markets – on the London Stock Exchange this month. The London-based firm said in its prospectus that it would seek to raise up to £400m at Initial Public Offering on the Main Market, through the sale of shares at 100 pence per share. 

Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo, BNP Paribas and Morgan Stanley have been accused of propping up the plastics industry in a new report, which claims that the banks were responsible for 62% of lending and underwriting to the biggest players in the space. In  Bankrolling Plastics, NGO Portfolio Earth identified 40 firms with significant involvement in the global plastics supply chain, saying they had received a combined $1.7trn between January 2015 and September 2019. 

The University of Exeter Business School has launched a new research centre for sustainability finance, which will be headed up by Professor Chendi Zhang. It will initially focus on producing research on ESG factors in investment and financial decisions, and on how finance contributes to the solutions of global challenges, such as climate change and rising inequality.

UK retail icon Marks & Spencer has promised to cut all ties with suppliers implicated in forced labour of the Uyghur community in North West China. The firm has joined the Coalition to End Uyghur Forced Labour’s Call to Action, which commits it to stop sourcing everything from cotton to finished garments from the Uyghur Region. 

AllianceBernstein will oppose directors nominated by Japanese companies if none of the candidates are women, according to Nikkei Asia. The US asset manager is a major shareholder of a number of high-profile Japanese companies including Nippon, Telegraph & Telephone, Fujitsu, and Nintendo.