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Golding expands successful private equity impact strategy for Article 9 investors

Munich, 5 September 2023 – The global fund of funds, Golding Impact 2021, has been upgraded to “dark green” and now meets the strict requirements of Article 9 Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). This represents Golding Capital Partners’ response to the increasing demand for investments with ambitious, measurable environmental and social sustainability objectives. In addition to investments in the EU, the fund’s global private equity impact strategy also enables investors to gain exposure to countries such as the US, Canada, UK, Switzerland as well as selected emerging markets, without having to forego the strict transparency rules introduced by the European SFDR. This expands the universe of impact funds available to institutional Article 9 investors significantly and also increases the level of diversification substantially. The impact fund will focus on companies with cutting-edge, transformative business models within climate technologies (85 per cent) and inclusive finance (15 per cent).

Impact fund opens up global Article 9 potential

According to research by Golding Capital Partners, only 30 per cent of all private equity impact funds worldwide are classified as qualifying for Article 9 of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), although many more have sustainable investment objectives and conform to strict sustainability criteria. “Impact funds based outside the European Union are often able to meet the requirements for classification under Article 9, but are typically not willing to incur the additional administrative costs of doing so. As a result, investors seeking to make Article 9 investments have until now been missing out on these opportunities. Our verification and classification process, carried out in close cooperation with our target fund managers, enables us to close this gap in the interest of our investors”, explains Dr Andreas Nilsson, Managing Director and Head of Impact Investing at Golding.

The fund’s investment strategy remains unchanged: It will focus on funds and their portfolio companies which on the one hand generate risk-adjusted market rate returns, and on the other hand contribute significantly to alleviating climate change, biodiversity loss and global inequality by virtue of their sustainable business models. The main geographic markets are Europe and North America, with a smaller allocation to emerging markets. The fund is structured as a Luxembourg SCS SICAV-RAIF and has a minimum commitment of €5 million.

Detailed verification process based on SFDR standards

The new classification is based on a process devised in cooperation with an advisory company, which mirrors the requirements of the SFDR for sustainable investments. Golding collects and reviews relevant data as defined by the SFDR to classify potential target funds based outside the EU and therefore not subject to the EU Disclosure Regulation, but still meet all the criteria of Article 9. “It is important to note that we are not reclassifying funds already covered by the SFDR according to our own criteria. What we are doing is reviewing target funds which are not formally classified under to the EU regulation with the aim to determine whether they conform to the SFDR criteria”, adds Dr Andreas Nilsson.

“Our impact strategy has a global scope and there is a large number of high-quality impact opportunities in North America, UK and some of the larger emerging markets that are not subject to the SFDR. The fact that we are now able to make them investable under the umbrella of an Article 9 fund is a great step forward and a pioneering achievement by our impact team. This expands the impact universe for institutional Article 9 investors by a significant multiple and enables even greater diversification”, says Dr Matthias Reicherter, Managing Partner and CIO at Golding. 

About Golding Capital Partners GmbH

Golding Capital Partners GmbH is one of Europe’s leading independent asset managers for alternative investments, focusing on the asset classes infrastructure, private credit, private equity, secondaries and impact. With a team of more than 200 professionals at its offices in Munich, London, Luxembourg, Milan, New York, Tokyo and Zurich, Golding Capital Partners helps institutional and professional investors to develop their investment strategy and manages some €14 billion in assets. Its more than 230 investors include pension funds, insurance companies, foundations, family offices and ecclesiastical institutions, as well as banks, savings banks and cooperative banks. Golding became a signatory of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) in 2013 and has been a supporter of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) since 2021.

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Disclaimer

The purchase of interests in the fund of funds represents an entrepreneurial investment, which in addition to the chance of income, also entails risks up to the total loss of invested capital. An investment decision should only be taken on the basis of the appropriate issue document, the partnership agreement, the subscription form, the most recent valuation (net asset value) and last annual report.

The fund of funds is only open to knowledgeable investors within the meaning of the Luxembourg Law of 23 July 2016 relating to reserved alternative investment funds (RAIF) and who are professional investors within the meaning of the Luxembourg Law of 12 July 2013 on alternative investment fund managers (AIFM) or, to the extent that the legislation applicable to such investors allows the distribution of shares in this investment fund of funds to them, particularly those who qualify as semi-professional investors in Germany or qualifying private investors under Austrian or Swiss law.

You are advised that Golding Capital Partners is not authorised to provide legal or tax advice. The information in this document is a presentation of Golding Capital Partners’ internal opinion of the topic under discussion, which may not have been validated or not definitively by external legal or tax advisers and which does not apply in all circumstances. The presentations do not meet the statutory requirements intended to ensure the objectivity of financial analysis. None of the statements by Golding Capital Partners constitute investment advice or legal or tax advice and must always be reviewed by knowledgeable third parties authorised to provide legal or tax advice. Some of the legal matters involved may not have been definitively settled. It can therefore not be ruled out that third parties, regulatory and tax authorities and public auditors hold different opinions. For this reason, no guarantee for the accuracy of the statements can be given.

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