Stockholm (NordSIP) – With fund managers continuing to embrace sustainable investments, their focus on the Nordic region, where such investments are extremely popular, grows too. On May 12th, BlueOrchard, a member of the Schroders Group, announced the appointment of Magnus Weikert (Pictured) as Vice President responsible for the distribution of BlueOrchard’s impact investment products in the Nordic region. He will be based in Copenhagen.
Weikert holds a Master of Science in Business and Economics from the University of Lund and previously worked as a Director at Alternative Equity Partners A/S. He has extensive experience in international fundraising and business development working with managers and professional investors on sustainable private assets such as real estate and forest investments.
Tackling Poverty and Climate Change
Speaking to NordSIP, Weikert explains he is looking forward to embracing BlueOrchard efforts against poverty and climate change. “BlueOrchard, as a global impact investment manager, combines financial returns with achieving a social and/or environmental goal through investments that generate competitive risk-adjusted returns,” Weikert explains. “More specifically, BlueOrchard seeks to tackle imminent and important global challenges by making an impact through investments centered on the (i) financial inclusion and (ii) climate change.”
“Financial inclusion aims to reduce poverty and inequality through investments in micro finance, women empowerment and providing capital that enables finance towards education, among other channels. Climate change focus on climate change mitigation, such as CO2 emission reduction and climate change adaptation, including by financing climate insurance and sustainable infrastructure investments,” he adds.
“Both poverty and the consequences of climate change have profound impact on the population in many emerging markets. BlueOrchard has over twenty years of on-the-ground experience across emerging markets and has developed important relationships with key stakeholders in these regions.”
I look forward to work with the teams at BlueOrchard, Schroders and with professional investors and to discuss how BlueOrchard’s investment solutions can make an impact, provide capital to meet relevant SDGs in combination with competitive risk adjusted returns.”
BlueOrchard’s Nordic Appeal
“The Nordic region – where the company has grown significantly in recent years – is one of the most important regions for BlueOrchard,” Weikert notes. According to him, Nordic investors have longer experience with sustainability investment considerations, including impact investments, than investors in some other regions. “This is reflected in investors’ requirements of the managers they endeavour to partner with, including the ability to proactively conduct impact engagement in the underlying investments, provide investors with detailed and timely impact reporting, and actively invest in relevant risk management and investment capabilities.”
According to Weikert, BlueOrchard is well-positioned to cater to these requirements. “Professional investors value BlueOrchard because of the firm’s large institutional investment platform, impact investment expertise supported by an on-the-ground presence with over two decades of experience and its sophisticated impact management framework. Additionally, the ability to offer impact investment solutions across both private and public markets enables BlueOrchard to be relevant across many parts of an institutional portfolio. Finally, being member of the Schroders Group adds additional, reach, complimentary research, and product development capabilities.”
Nordic Investors Demand Impact
“Based on my interaction with local investors, I can say that sustainability is high on the agenda of both large and mid-sized investors in the Nordics. The focus appears to have developed from a risk management perspective to more of a return and impact enhancing perspective. An exclusion framework may have been sufficient in the past. However, today many investors are looking for partners who can actively drive returns through impact and sustainability-focused strategies, strong risk management, impact management frameworks, research and reporting capabilities,” Weikert says.
“At Schroders, Private Assets is an essential and large part of the business and BlueOrchard is an instrumental part of Schroders value proposition. Our clients in the Nordic region are sophisticated within sustainability in general and well educated in impact investing, which is at the heart of BlueOrchard. Magnus experience and knowledge within this field will be of great value to the group, our clients and our region going forward,” Henrik Jonsson, Head of Nordic region, Schroders, concludes.
Image courtesy of BlueOrchard
