BNP Paribas Asset Management (BNPP AM) announced the launch of the BNPP Environmental Infrastructure Income Fund, aimed at providing investors with long-term secular themes created by global investments in environmental infrastructure.
The new fund is classified as Article 9 under the EU’s SFDR regulation, indicating that it has sustainable investment as an objective.
The new fund will be jointly managed by the Co-Heads of BNPP AM’s Environmental Strategies Group, Edward Lees and Ulrik Fugmann, and will invest in a diversified portfolio of about 70-90 holdings, focused on environmental infrastructure projects across the key themes of Power & Digital Infrastructure, Water & Waste Management, and Transportation Infrastructure.
BNPP AM said that the new fund comes amidst significant tailwinds from maintaining and upgrading critical infrastructure, which benefit from major investment programs announced recently in Europe and the U.S. to promote resilient infrastructure and energy security.
Key focus areas for the fund include defensive environmental infrastructure companies that benefit from rising demand for power and related grid infrastructure, as well as from significant growth in data centers and related infrastructure, as well as companies driving upgrades in water and waste infrastructure and companies improving global transportation infrastructure.
The fund will also target critical listed infrastructure that is less sensitive to changes in economic activity and to changes in business cycles, and will avoid more cyclical infrastructure related to fossil fuels, and more discretionary social services and infrastructure. The fund will also focus primarily on Europe and U.S. companies in the Utilities and Industrials sectors.
Lees and Fugmann said:
“Global environmental infrastructure unifies the world’s most pronounced megatrends of bolstering energy security, enabling exponential digital innovation, catering for changing demographics and population growth and not least, secure a positive environmental outcome.”
