{"id":94414,"date":"2020-05-04T00:12:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T22:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/innovation\/blackrock-launches-its-first-impact-mutual-fund-advancing-the-united-nations-sustainable-development-goals\/"},"modified":"2020-05-04T00:12:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-03T22:12:00","slug":"blackrock-launches-its-first-impact-mutual-fund-advancing-the-united-nations-sustainable-development-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/innovation\/blackrock-launches-its-first-impact-mutual-fund-advancing-the-united-nations-sustainable-development-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"BlackRock Launches its First Impact Mutual Fund Advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em> <strong>Fund Developed Under New Impact Investing Team Expands Sustainability Investment Platform<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n<p>BlackRock announces the launch of a high-conviction active equity impact strategy with<br \/>\nits BlackRock Global Impact Fund (\u201cthe Fund\u201d). The new Fund gives investors the opportunity to direct their<br \/>\ninvestments toward companies helping to address major world challenges. The addition of the impact<br \/>\nstrategy forms part of BlackRock\u2019s continued efforts to expand its sustainable investment platform as it<br \/>\ndelivers against its commitment to make sustainability its standard for investing. <\/p>\n<p>The Fund\u2019s impact is achieved by investing in companies which contribute to the advancement of the United<br \/>\nNations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets. The portfolio is comprised of companies that<br \/>\nmap back to the firm\u2019s proprietary impact themes including increasing access to quality education and<br \/>\naffordable housing, advancing healthcare innovation to help with societal challenges such as the current<br \/>\nCOVID-19 pandemic, expanding financial and digital inclusion, preventing climate change, reversing<br \/>\nenvironmental degradation, and increasing efficiencies in water usage and deployment.<\/p>\n<p>The Fund is managed through BlackRock\u2019s Active Equities Impact Investing team which recently formed<br \/>\nunder the leadership of Eric Rice, who joined the firm in October 2019. Eric will draw upon his 30 years of<br \/>\nindustry experience, most recently exclusively developing and managing impact strategies, and including<br \/>\nhis prior experience working for the World Bank as a development economist and as a U.S. diplomat in<br \/>\nRwanda.<\/p>\n<p>Rachel Lord, Head of Europe, Middle East and Africa for BlackRock commented, <em>\u201cEric joined<br \/>\nBlackRock with a strong track record in developing alpha-seeking impact strategies and his expertise will<br \/>\nlead our impact investing efforts during this challenging time and beyond. While launching the Global<br \/>\nImpact Fund during a global pandemic is coincidental, it does highlight that the opportunity inherent in<br \/>\ninvesting in companies committed to doing good is enduring, and is of increasing relevance to the world<br \/>\ntoday.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Alongside the impact goals, the Fund seeks to maximise long-term total return and to outperform the MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI). To achieve the Fund\u2019s objectives, the team has set stringent impact criteria<br \/>\nfor the portfolio companies including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> materiality \u2013 whereby a majority of revenues or business activity advances one or more of the SDGs<br \/>\nor targets;<\/li>\n<li> additionality \u2013 defined as delivering a new technology or innovation to market, serving an<br \/>\nunderserved population, or operating in an unaddressed market; and<\/li>\n<li> measurability \u2013 in that the impact must be quantifiable. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>\u201cImpact investing is becoming more and more attractive as investors increasingly require their investment<br \/>\ntargets to advance their sustainability objectives,\u201d<\/em> said Eric Rice, Portfolio Manager of the BlackRock<br \/>\nGlobal Impact Fund and Head of Active Equities Impact Investing at BlackRock. <em>\u201cLaunching the Fund<br \/>\nduring the COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the important role companies play in<br \/>\nsociety. COVID-19 is one of the greatest societal challenges the world faces right now, and we see impact<br \/>\ninvesting playing a meaningful role in how we overcome it. Capital from the Fund will be put toward the<br \/>\nsearch for alpha by investing in companies focused on medical diagnostic tools and vaccines to combat the<br \/>\ncrisis, as well as crisis mass notification systems and microloans, amongst others.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n<p>The team intends to run a low-turnover, long-term buy and hold concentrated portfolio strategy and use<br \/>\nactive dialogue and partnership with companies to drive improvement towards impact outcomes, alongside<br \/>\nlong-term value creation. The Fund is USD-denominated and available for investors located across Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Impact investments are designed to generate positive, measurable impact alongside a financial return. The<br \/>\nFund uses the World Bank\u2019s IFC Operating Principles to ensure impact considerations are integrated<br \/>\nthroughout the investment lifecycle. Reporting plays an integral role of the investment offering where<br \/>\nclients will receive regular updates and reports on the positive environmental or social impact that Fund<br \/>\ncompanies are achieving.<\/p>\n<p>BlackRock\u2019s active equities impact offering will sit alongside existing impact strategies in the fixed income<br \/>\nand alternatives business areas. The Active Equities group manages USD $316bn * of assets on behalf of its<br \/>\nclients and has managed Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment strategies for over four<br \/>\nyears.<\/p>\n<p>The Fund forms a part of BlackRock\u2019s Sustainable Investing platform which manages USD $107bn[[Source: BlackRock 31 December 2020.<br \/>\n]] in<br \/>\ndedicated sustainable strategies, comprising of ESG outcome oriented, sustainable thematic and impact<br \/>\nfunds. Sustainable investment options may have the potential to offer clients better outcomes and is integral<br \/>\nto the way BlackRock manages risk, constructs portfolios, designs products and engages with companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The portfolio is comprised of companies that map back to the firm\u2019s proprietary impact themes including increasing access to quality education and affordable housing, advancing healthcare innovation to help with societal challenges such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, expanding financial and digital inclusion&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":94412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1471],"tags":[1809,1655,1682,1651,1437,1691,1776,1952,1685],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94414"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}