ADB anchors $750m Robeco-led green fund – updated

*adds further detail about third party fund investment and comment from ADB.

Asian Development Bank has anchored a private equity initiative, Asia Climate Partners (ACP), that will invest in environmentally supportive projects in Asia, alongside Robeco Institutional Asset Management and the Japanese financial group Orix Corp.

The three firms have committed $400 million to the initiative between them; ACP is targeting $750 million overall with a $1 billion hard cap for a final close in 2015. It will be approaching institutional investors globally for commitments.

Agriculture, forestry and water are three of the targeted sectors as well as clean technology, renewable energy and natural resource efficiency. ACP will be searching for third party agri and forestry funds to invest in alongside making direct investments, according to Duarte Henriques da Silva, investment specialist, investment funds and special initiative divisions, ADB.

The funds will need to have some carbon dioxide reduction impact, he added emphasising that they must also be commercially attractive.

Robeco and ADB will both source deals and be co-managers of the initiative.

ACP will be based in Hong Kong and will invest 20 percent of its capital into third party funds while the remaining 80 percent will be co-invested directly alongside other investors.

China and India will be the main focus areas along with the Southeast Asian countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

ADB already has plans to invest between $100 million and $200 million directly into agriculture each year, as reported in April. This initiative is being managed by a different department.

“We believe that ACP provides an innovative platform to deploy capital into climate-related transactions across Asia that are designed to generate attractive returns,” said Todd Freeland, director general of ADB’s private sector operations department in the statement.

While Robeco will be ACP’s investment manager, the venture will also benefit from ADB and Orix resources as they are “two of the most active and successful investors in the low-carbon sector in Asia”, according to Freeland.