BNY Mellon IM launches impact emerging market debt fund

BNY Mellon Investment Management has launched a new emerging market debt fund with a focus on impact investing.

The firm's Responsible Horizons EM Debt Impact fund will be managed by Insight Investment, which is part of BNY Mellon IM.

Classified as Article 9 under SFDR, the fund will be focused on emerging market debt "impact" investments and will mainly consist of impact bonds, while also including impact issuers and improving issuers.

The fund's launch follows the firm's Responsible Horizons Euro Corporate Bond fund and the Responsible Horizons Euro Impact Bond fund, the latter of which was launched in January last year.

Simon Cooke, who will be lead portfolio manager of the fund, said: "Investors serious about impact cannot ignore emerging markets. They face some of the most pressing environmental and social challenges globally.

"They also offer an increasingly diversified, rapidly growing impact universe, particularly within the corporate debt space.

"We seek to identify what we believe to be the ‘best ideas' from that universe to combine a structural yield premium with scope to deliver long-term positive change."

Matt Oomen, global head of distribution at BNY Mellon Investment Management, added: "Drawing on Insight's impact assessment framework, this fund meets the rising demand for impact-oriented capital investment in emerging markets.

"Not only will it seek to provide financial returns through exposure to emerging market companies, it will also aim to direct capital towards delivering tangible, measurable impact."