Friday funds: MSCI extends Implied Temperature scores to funds and indexes

MSCI has announced it will expand its Implied Temperature Rise metrics to 56,000 equity and fixed income funds, as well as all of its own indices. The metric, which charts the alignment of companies with global temperature rises, is available through MSCI’s fund ratings tool.

Royal London Asset Management has launched a global equity transition fund. The fund, an Article 8 one, will hold 40-60 companies and focus on corporates “able to play a material role in the areas of climate transition, natural capital preservation, health & wellbeing, and equality of opportunity”. It will be managed by Bixuan Xu.

The investment arm of the Inter-American Development Bank has raised €650 million from a social bond in its inaugural syndicated EUR benchmark deal. IDB Invest saw orders of more than €1 billion for the deal, leading it to upsize from €500 million, with 32 final investors taking part.

Private investor Ara Partners has launched an industrial decarbonisation fund with a $2 billion target. Ara is looking to invest in decarbonisation solutions in several sectors such as manufacturing, materials, energy and food through the fund, which will be one of the largest impact funds in private equity if it hits its target.

Lombard Odier Investment Managers has launched a “Carbon Opportunity” strategy. The active strategy, which will be managed by Callum Lee, “is designed to capture opportunities across carbon markets worldwide”.

Schroders impact subsidiary BlueOrchard and Finnfund have announced a $20 million debt investment in Africa Mobile Networks, intended to support the Sub-Saharan African telecoms firm in rolling out network services to more people.

DWS has launched three new ESG screened ETFs across US dividend, growth and value equities. The firm gave no further details of the screening process, beyond that the three ETFs “utilise ESG filtering”.

KKR has invested $400 million in Serentica Renewables, a decarbonisation platform which looks to enable the energy transition. The investment will seek to support the company as it provides clean energy solutions for energy-intensive industries and works with companies on their paths to net-zero electricity. Serentica has entered into three long-term power purchase agreements and is developing around 1,500 MW of solar and wind power projects across various states including Karnataka, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.