Friday Funds: Boost for African renewables, Schroders and BlueOrchard launch EM green bond fund

Schroders and BlueOrchard have launched a joint emerging markets climate bond fund, investing in bonds with clear environmental, green or social benefits, including sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds. 

Berkeley Energy has raised €130m for its second Africa Renewable Energy Fund, from seven development banks: Italian CDP, the UK’s CDC, Dutch FMO, French Proparco, Swedfund, the African Development Bank’s Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa, and the Clean Technology Fund. Investment will focus on mid-sized renewables assets across sub-Saharan Africa.

The BUILD Fund has made its first $500,000 investment in a Kenyan solar product distributor. The fund, created in partnership with Bamboo Capital Partners and the UN Capital Development Fund, aims to provide finance to SMEs with strong development impact in the world’s least developed countries.

Macquarie has closed a €90m debt investment in a 120MW portfolio of Spanish solar plants owned by renewables asset manager Q-Energy.

Three Carmignac products, its Portfolio Patrimoine Europe, Portfolio Emergents and Euro-Entrepreneurs funds, have received France’s official SRI label; bringing the total number of SRI-labelled Carmignac funds to eight, representing almost €4bn in AUM.

Caixabank has partnered with BlackRock to launch a range of sustainable investment funds and pension strategies. BlackRock’s equity impact team will assist the bank in developing the equity investment strategies for the range, which will all be self-classified under Article 9 of the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation.

G2 Venture Partners has closed its second fund, raising $500m to support entrepreneurs “unlocking new paths to environmentally and socially responsible growth”.