Where ESG meets private equity
As private markets are gaining more investor appeal, CGWM’s Patrick Thomas looks at
the pros and cons versus public markets
fund selector comment
Transparency requirements are less onerous in private markets. It’s difficult to
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‘My biggest
Downing’s Roger Lewis speaks
Q&A
There are billions of dollars being invested in solar and the capacity keeps increasing. It’s the number one investment’
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Roger Lewis’s biography
Private enterprise
Private markets are
Investors need to bear this in mind when choosing which private markets solutions to allocate to, and Emily Pollock, co-founder of private asset solutions at Schroders Capital, agrees. She says to start in the world of private market investing, investment managers should work with an adviser or experienced professional. Although you can upskill to a point, “part of the beauty of private markets is that it’s fragmented” and “it’s not like you can go online and look at a database”.
Source: MSCI, data as of 30 September 2023
The ability
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It’s a person-
to-person type of business.
At the end of
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Patrick Thomas
Head of ESG investing, Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management
Roger Lewis, head of sustainability and responsible investing, Downing
Roger Lewis is head of sustainability and responsible investing at Downing.
The private investment market has steadily grown over the past 10 years, with investors chasing diversified returns and hedges against an increasingly volatile public market. This has been all the more apparent recently, with the global economy still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic, increased geopolitical tensions across the globe and interest rates spiralling upward.
Private climate funds concentrated in high-emitting sectors
Asset-weighted sector exposure %
Maria Nazarova-Doyle, global
Emily Pollock, co-founder of private asset solutions, Schroders Capital
Data requirements and transparency
Fomo, the fear of missing out, is probably the fund investor’s worst enemy. If there is a bandwagon, investors will jump on it – frontier markets, cryptocurrency, Chinese consumer tech, the metaverse, AI – even ESG – there is always a new trend in markets that investors feel they are missing out on.
How long has Downing been investing in private markets, and how has that evolved over the years?