If unable to view, please use this link.
Session Highlights:
- This session provided a unique window into the real time interactions between impact funds and asset owners. The questions raised about the fund managers’ presentations were a great synopsis of the top 3 challenges impact investing faces: aligning with investors risk/return preferences; suitable exit options; and clear impact measurement.
- Mette Ekeroth’s quote “If you’ve met one family office, you’ve met one family office,” was a perfect segue into the feedback portion of the session, making the point that funds need to be prepared for a very diverse landscape of asset owner preferences.
- Investors gave good feedback on how to address the key considerations of both impact-oriented and commercially-oriented impact investors, pointing to a theory of change and a substantiation of competitiveness, and fund durations, management fees, target IRRs and exit plans, respectively. For both, an understanding of the policy, regulatory and economic environment is critical.
Session Description:
-
The GIIN’s Product Development Platform aims to accelerate the flow of capital to funds that seek to address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while Climate Action Platform’s overall vision is to ‘Unlock Capital’ into climate solutions. AVPN’s Climate Action Platform and the GIIN through their strategic alliance will come together to further strengthen its impact investing network to run a session for Structuring Investment Products for Climate Action. The central idea of the session is to have 2 climate impact fund managers in the process of developing investment products that align to or contribute to SDG #13: Climate Action to present their proposed investment products including structure, terms and the impact challenge the funds are aiming to solve. A panel of asset owners such as family offices, foundations, institutional investors (and their advisors), and private banks/wealth managers, will provide real-time feedback to those fund managers based on their perspective and that of their organization as an educational exercise.
Key Takeaways:
- Opportunity for investors to learn about 2 climate impact funds and articulate their interests in and needs related to investment products
- Inform the design of products that meet investors’ needs, mechanism for fund managers to access market intelligence, test and refine products, and ultimately raise capital
- Enable Fund manager and Asset owners to connect and work together
