Friday Funds: Inflows continue to mushroom for Impax

Impax Asset Management has announced inflows of nearly £4bn in the last quarter, bringing its assets under management to £30bn. The lion’s share of the allocations were to its public equities strategy. It saw an additional £800m uplift from market movements over the period – all from the performance of public equities, as its fixed-income and private assets underperformed. Overall, the environmental investment house has seen assets swell by nearly 50% over six months. 

Amundi has rebranded its Responsible Investing – Green Bonds fund as a Climate Just Transition Fund. It will now integrate a ‘Just Transition’ score based on the impact a low-carbon transition will have on employees, consumers, local communities and wider society. The fund investment universe is based on the Bloomberg Barclays Euro Aggregate Corporate index, composed of 3,122 corporate bonds.

FiveT Hydrogen has raised almost €300m for what it claims is the world’s first clean hydrogen fund. Investors include Plug Power and Chart Industries. The fund, which has a target of €1bn, will invest in large projects involved in the production, storage and distribution of clean hydrogen – primarily in OECD countries. 

Blackrock Real Assets has announced the final close of its Global Renewable Power Fund III at $4.8bn, with commitments from over 100 institutional investors in 18 countries. The fund, which invests in global climate infrastructure assets, primarily in renewable power, has already completed three investments in European onshore wind, and US and Asian solar.

Vision Ridge has reached the hard cap for its third Sustainable Asset Fund within five months, it has said, raising $1.25bn. Allocation will commence by the end of the second quarter, focusing on transport electrification and the energy transition.

Osmosis has launched a resource efficiency fund to invest in European companies that use natural resources more efficiently than their peers. Tobacco firms and those in breach of the UN Global Compact will be excluded from the fund, which will seek to outperform the MSCI Europe Index by 2-3%. Resource efficient companies will be identified using Osmosis’ own environmental research.

Mill Road Capital is hoping to raise $500m for a Progressive Governance fund, which will take large positions in small-cap companies and appoint board members “capable of improving the culture and character of the boards”, as well as improving racial and ethnic diversity.

The alternatives arm of AXA Investment Management has secured backing from five unnamed investors at first close of its ‘fifth generation development strategy’, raising €799m. The investors are in Asia, North America and Europe. The strategy will invest in large income-producing assets with strong ESG credentials in France, the UK and Germany, with the option to invest in other European countries.

Artemis has launched a ‘positive future’ equity fund, investing in 35-45 companies that “address the most significant challenges to sustainability”. It is benchmarked against the MSCI AC World (TR) Index.

The Soros Economic Development Fund, Mercy Investment Services and Vanguard Charitable are among those to have invested in a fund to support refugees. Kiva Capital Management announced the final close for the Kiva Refugee Investment Fund, raising $32.5m to “scale lending to fragile communities globally” by investing “in partnership with microfinance partners” across the Middle East, Africa and South America. 

Aviva has launched a climate transition global equity fund. Holders of Aviva workplace pensions will be able to invest in the fund, which targets companies in the climate change adaptation and mitigation sector, as well as companies taking steps to mitigate the impacts of climate change.