The Asian Development Bank (ADB), ORIX Corporation and Robeco Institutional Asset Management have formed the Asia Climate Partners (ACP), a joint venture that will undertake commercially-oriented private equity investments across a variety of environmentally supportive, low-carbon transactions throughout Asia.

 

ACP, which will be capitalized initially by US$400 million from its founding partners, will be based in Hong Kong, staffed by a team of experienced private equity investment professionals, and focused on investing in renewable energy, clean technology, natural resource efficiency, water, agriculture, forestry and other climate-friendly companies and transactions that are structured to generate market-driven, risk-adjusted returns and have a positive environmental and social impact.

 

“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.

 

He added, “ACP will benefit from the combined strengths of Robeco as a global asset manager and ORIX and ADB, which are two of the most active and successful investors in the low-carbon sector in Asia. The substantial resources that the founding partners are committing to ACP will help position it as the preeminent investor in this asset class in Asia from day one, and represents a clear signal of the depth of our collective belief in the investment strategy and its return potential.”

 

Asia’s economies are among the fastest growing in the world, and are faced by some of its most significant environmental challenges including poor air and water quality, inadequate and unreliable supplies of energy, and significant inefficiencies in the utilization of existing supplies of energy and other natural resource inputs and outputs. Given increasing public and private sector focus on these challenges, and the historically low levels of capital deployed in these areas, investment in renewable energy and resource efficiency has the potential to grow at 2-3x economic growth in Asia over the next several decades, the parties said in a statement.

 

Leni Boeren, member of the management board of Robeco said. “This is a milestone in our successful cooperation with ORIX and is further evidence of our growing commitment to creating attractive new investment opportunities in Asia for our institutional investor partners around the world. We believe that our recognized expertise as investors in resource efficiency, sustainability and private equity will contribute significantly to the ultimate success of ACP.”

 

“ORIX has established an extensive network through more than 40 years as an active investor, owner and operator of businesses throughout Asia,” Yuichi Nishigori, corporate senior vice-president at ORIX, said. He also said, “The energy and environmental sectors are core components of our business strategy, and our investment of capital and people into ACP represents a continuation of our commitment to being a leader in this field. Asian countries are in need of securing rapid and sustainable economic growth and must satisfy the ever-increasing needs of their people for a higher living standard and quality of life. This initiative will contribute to providing necessary capital for Asian economies to meet such demands.”