Jupiter has announced a new Article 9 Global Ecology Bond fund, which will be run by their head of environmental solutions Rhys Petheram.
The fund will consist of global corporate bonds issued by companies "whose core economic activities contribute to addressing global environmental sustainability challenges, with a particular focus on climate change mitigation and natural capital and biodiversity restoration".
Petheram (pictured) will be able to invest in both labelled and unlabelled bonds and across the credit spectrum. In "normal market conditions," the fund will hold around 60 to 90 issuers, with an overall credit rating expected to be investment grade.
A 'founder' share class of the fund, which has a minimum initial investment of €3m for institutional will be offered for the first 12 months of the fund. It will have an annual management charge of 0.2% and an OCF of 0.34% The share classes will have an AMC of 0.35% and OCF of 0.53% for retail and AMC of 0.35% and OCF of 0.49% for institutional.
The manager said: "2021 was a record-setting year for green finance with issuance of labelled sustainability bonds topping $1 trillion for the first time.
"The scale of change required to reverse global warming is creating significant opportunities to support companies which provide products and services critical to achieving sustainability targets, and the growing environmental solutions universe is now setting the pace for policy and regulation."
Experts warn of ESG-friendly rebranding as funds prepare for introduction of SDR
The manager will be supported by a team of dedicated thematic environmental investment experts.
Warren Tonkinson, deputy global head of distribution, said: "History and experience really do matter in this space…When the first corporate green bonds were issued in 2012, Rhys was one of the first investors at the table, and in the years since he has been instrumental in shaping the green bond universe as we know it today."
Petheram has managed the corporate bond segment of the mixed-asset Jupiter Global Ecology Diversified fund since inception in 2016.
The €51m fund has returned 27.9% in the five years to the end of 2021, while the EUR Moderate Allocation - Global sector returned 25.2%, according to the fund's factsheet.
