Banque de Luxembourg Investments (BLI) and Funds For Good have jointly launched the FFG European Impact Equities and FFG American Impact Equities funds.
The two companies, which have already worked closely together for almost a decade, confirmed on Friday 29 September 2023 that they are now forging even closer links in a partnership in which each company will contribute its expertise in terms of generating impact.
Through the launch of these two funds, classified as Article 9 under the Sustainable Financial Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), the two companies' common objective is to give investors access to investment strategies in which sustainability and impact are tangible at two complementary levels: at the level of the investments made in the funds by the BLI teams and post-investment through the direct and local impact activities developed by Funds For Good IMPACT.
"The launch of these two sub-funds is the result of our desire as a management company to offer investment solutions that remain solid in terms of their risk/return profile, while deploying socially responsible investment in the most relevant way possible," explained Fanny Nosetti-Perrot, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BLI. "Our intention was to develop a management methodology that integrates sustainability and impact generation at the heart of portfolios, while adding a more concrete and tangible impact dimension. We've been working with FFG for almost ten years and, over that time, we've been able to see the merits of the impact initiatives they've developed. Having them at our side for this new project seemed an obvious choice."
"The Funds For Good business model, through which half of the company's profits are donated each year to its social activities, could not function without a range of high-performance, competitive investment products, managed by solid companies in which investors can have confidence over the long term. The first company to believe in our model back in 2011, and to sign up to it, was BLI ," added Nicolas Crochet, co-CEO and co-founder of Funds For Good. "Despite clear advances in responsible investment practices, many questions remain about the tangibility or additionality of certain investment products. So it was only natural that, by combining our ideas with the teams at BLI, we decided to pool our strengths to create liquid investment solutions that offer investors a dual and complementary view of impact: the first, within the investment portfolios, using the methodology developed by BLI. The second, with Funds For Good, is to provide funding and support for courageous but financially vulnerable people who are trying to re-enter the world of work through entrepreneurship, as well as for entrepreneurs in their region who have a project with a strong social or environmental dimension."
In terms of management, the investment methodology implemented is based on BLI's "Business-Like Investing" approach, to which is added a notion of impact using the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as an anchor.
"In concrete terms, we have developed an original approach based on the 'Impact, Quality, Value' triptych. Our aim is to invest in quality companies whose products and/or services make a direct and significant contribution to achieving one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals. We have chosen not to focus on any one theme in particular, but rather to cover both social and environmental concerns in order to benefit from the interconnections that exist between the different themes," noted Tom Michels, manager of the FFG European Impact Equities fund.
