300 million euros: Eurazeo launches Sustainable Maritime Infrastructure Fund

Paris/ Frank­furt am Main — Eura­zeo laun­ches Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture, a thema­tic fund to finance envi­ron­men­tally friendly infra­struc­ture and tech­no­logy in the mari­time sector. The Fund enables sustainable deve­lo­p­ment as defi­ned in Article 9 of Regu­la­tion (EU) 2019/2088 (known as the “Disclo­sure Regu­la­tion”) and thus directly contri­bu­tes to Eurazeo’s ESG stra­tegy called “O+”, through which the company aims to achieve carbon neutra­lity by 2040. The target size of the fund is 300 million euros, and seve­ral renow­ned state and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors have alre­ady pled­ged their participation.

Curr­ently, 90 percent of the world’s goods are trans­por­ted by sea. Carbon dioxide reduc­tion in the mari­time sector is thus crucial to halting climate change. To meet this chall­enge, the fund will finance mainly in three areas: Ships equip­ped with advan­ced tech­no­lo­gies and ther­e­fore more envi­ron­men­tally friendly, inno­va­tive port faci­li­ties, and capi­tal equip­ment used in the deve­lo­p­ment of offshore rene­wa­ble energy gene­ra­tion facilities.

The Euro­pean Commission’s Green Deal envi­sa­ges Europe achie­ving the goal of climate neutra­lity by 2050. The Eura­zeo Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture will finance around fifty projects or faci­li­ties in the mari­time indus­try across Europe that contri­bute to achie­ving this goal. Germany is to play a key role in this as an invest­ment loca­tion. The mari­time indus­try in this coun­try has an annual sales volume of up to 50 billion euros, the coun­try is one of the largest ship­buil­ding nati­ons in the world, and around 20 percent of global contai­ner capa­city comes from here (as of 2018).

The Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture fund is mana­ged by Idin­vest Part­ners, a subsi­diary of Eura­zeo. As a leasing fund, it offers its inves­tors a parti­cu­larly secure risk profile, as the invest­ments are colla­te­ra­li­zed by the finan­ced capi­tal goods. Through the asset finance model, it gene­ra­tes quar­terly distri­bu­ti­ons from lease payments recei­ved and has an advan­ta­ge­ous solvency capi­tal requi­re­ment of less than ten percent.

As of Janu­ary 1, 2020, ship­ping compa­nies must signi­fi­cantly reduce their emis­si­ons (from 3.5 to 0.5 percent) under the new Inter­na­tio­nal Mari­time Orga­niza­tion (IMO) regu­la­tion to reduce the sulfur content of fuels. This regu­la­tion is part of a global stra­tegy by the IMO and aims to reduce total green­house gas emis­si­ons from the ship­ping indus­try by at least 50 percent by 2050 compared to 2008 levels. The fund will help reduce both green­house gas emis­si­ons and emis­si­ons of sulfur oxides (Sox) and nitro­gen oxides (NOx), which are parti­cu­larly harmful to the air.

The emis­sion reduc­tions achie­ved with the help of the fund invest­ments are measu­red using quan­ti­ta­tive indi­ca­tors whose measu­re­ment metho­do­logy has been veri­fied by inde­pen­dent experts and which are checked as part of an annual exter­nal survey.

In Janu­ary 2020, Eura­zeo Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture recei­ved the LuxFLAG label (“Appli­cant Fund Status”). The label certi­fies that funds take ESG crite­ria into account at every stage of the invest­ment process.

Chris­to­phe Bavière, member of Eurazeo’s Execu­tive Board, said, “We are very plea­sed to offer our inves­tors an option that meets the ‘Article 9’ crite­ria with Eura­zeo Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture. Many inves­tors are looking for invest­ments that make a measura­ble contri­bu­tion to decar­bo­niza­tion and envi­ron­men­tal change. In addi­tion, the fund is charac­te­ri­zed by a parti­cu­larly high level of capi­tal protection.”

Daniel Emers­le­ben, who serves as invest­ment direc­tor for the fund, added:
“Our new fund is a finan­cing instru­ment that will help reduce green­house gases and sulfur. We measure the emis­sion reduc­tions achie­ved, have the values veri­fied by inde­pen­dent experts and disc­lose them to our inves­tors. The imple­men­ta­tion of this process, which was deve­lo­ped in a trans­pa­rent process toge­ther with inde­pen­dent orga­niza­ti­ons, demons­tra­tes our commit­ment to deploy­ing capi­tal in a way that makes a measura­ble contri­bu­tion to addres­sing the envi­ron­men­tal and climate chal­lenges of our time.”

About the O+ ESG strategy

Eurazeo’s sustaina­bi­lity stra­tegy, called “O+”, was laun­ched in 2020 and has two main components:

A net zero carbon emis­si­ons target for Eura­zeo as well as its port­fo­lio compa­nies by 2040. The Company is guided by the crite­ria of the Science Based Targets initia­tive. This goal will be achie­ved by inves­t­ing in low-carbon compa­nies, redu­cing carbon costs and risks in the port­fo­lio, and measu­ring the carbon foot­print throug­hout the invest­ment cycle.
Promo­ting grea­ter inclu­sion and soli­da­rity by achie­ving at least 40 percent leader­ship of the under­re­pre­sen­ted gender at Eura­zeo as well as its port­fo­lio compa­nies, estab­li­shing systems to ensure that all stake­hol­ders bene­fit from the value crea­ted by Eurazeo’s invest­ments, and initia­ti­ves to improve access to health­care and promote equity and philanthropy.

Eura­zeo is the only private equity company listed in the indi­ces of the five leading rating agen­cies for non-finan­cial crite­ria. With an AA rating in MSCI’s ESG ranking (as of March 2020), Eura­zeo is among the top 20 percent of best-rated compa­nies, above the indus­try average. In 2020, Eura­zeo also achie­ved the maxi­mum score (A+) in the four PRI (Prin­ci­ples for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment) assess­ment cate­go­ries rele­vant to its busi­ness: Stra­tegy & Gover­nance, Private Equity (indi­rect), Private Equity (direct) and Fixed Income (direct). In each of these cate­go­ries, Eurazeo’s scores are thus above the median for the sector.

About Eura­zeo

Eura­zeo is a leading inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment company mana­ging €21.8 billion in assets across a diver­si­fied invest­ment port­fo­lio of more than 450 compa­nies. 15.0 billion euros of the assets under manage­ment came from invest­ment part­ners. With its compre­hen­sive exper­tise in private equity, real estate and private debt, Eura­zeo supports compa­nies of all sizes. A team of nearly 300 profes­sio­nals with deep sector exper­tise as well as access to global markets supports the deve­lo­p­ment of the port­fo­lio compa­nies and provi­des them with a respon­si­ble and stable growth plat­form. The solid share­hol­der struc­ture, consis­ting of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and family share­hol­ders, in combi­na­tion with a robust balance sheet without struc­tu­ral debt and a flexi­ble invest­ment hori­zon allow Eura­zeo to accom­pany port­fo­lio compa­nies over the long term.

Eura­zeo has offices in Paris, New York, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Shang­hai, London, Luxem­bourg, Frank­furt, Berlin and Madrid. Eura­zeo is listed on Euron­ext Paris.