Actionable Impact: Recent Episodes
Asteria Investment Managers
Host Dominique Sekyra interviews investors, entrepreneurs, and other members of the finance community to answer questions about impact investing in order to provide listeners with actionable insights to better navigate the sea of opinions, products and services offered in sustainable abs impact investing today.
My guest today is Luca Manera, portfolio manager of Asteria's Climate Bond Fund and Infrastructure Private Debt Strategy. Luca has managed portfolios for institutional and private investors for several years and joined Asteria to drive impact forward on the fixed income side. Luca's screens are constantly flickering with the latest economic information and he maintains a clear and structured procedure to digest the latest opinions and facts on a daily basis. Luca manages his portfolios with an engineering mindset and a systematic approach. Today we'll be discussing the current fixed income landscape. Given the year-to-date performance of this asset class, we'll be looking through some of the main reasons why investors should consider re-building their fixed income positions through green bonds rather than traditional bonds. We will also highlight some of the impact opportunities that investors can find in investing in green bonds.
What does the the current regulatory landscape look like? What is SFDR and who does it effect?
What are the advantages of moving early for institutional investors?
What are the "easy steps" that institutional investors can take?
What data is available for impact measurement? Types and formats?
Creating an investment process that integrates impact as a constraint. That’s an innovation. Could you take me through the development of this?
Take me through the process of integrating a new data source like patents into the model?
What are you limited by when it comes to data and integrating new sources of data? What would make your life easier?
A discussion on some of the most interesting opportunities in private debt infrastructure investment. Looking at what makes a transaction or project an interesting opportunity.
Everyone is currently looking to PE but what’s the action like in PD?
What makes an interesting opportunity? What factors do you consider?
Is impact hard to find and measure?
How do the players in the space compete for capital and how do managers complete for transactions?
A discussion on private debt infrastructure investment seeking to understand some of the key merits and drawbacks and address the main misconceptions of the space.
How does private debt look? Take me through a transaction.
What does private debt do well and what doesn’t it accomplish?
Apples vs. Pears, private debt is often lumped in the private markets basket in asset allocation. Why is this a fatal error?
Is the difference between private debt and private equity as significant as in the listed space?
This week discussing the viability of using impact as an investment factor in the investment process with Asteria's very own, Guido Bolliger. Some highlights include a clear explanation of what ESG does well ad what impact does better as well as a detailed review of the methodologies used in quantitatively measuring impact in a portfolio.
What are the push points that investors face?
- What are the new regulations and what can be expected?
- Portfolio theory; going from 2D risk/return model to 3D risk/return/impact model, what are the challenges?
- What can be measured?
- How expensive will it be to measure and implement impact?
What hopes do investors have for impact implementation?
- Better returns?
- Better understanding of investments.
- Increased transparency in their portfolio.
What’s currently going on in infrastructure?
What are some of the drawbacks in investing into infrastructure through Private Equity?
Who is Private Equity Infrastructure suited for?
What are the advantages of Private Debt Infrastructure?
Would it be useful to have a healthy mix of both worlds in a portfolio context?
Impact investments are investments made with the intention to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. How do we measure impact of investments and how do we report on them? The following questions are asked:
What’s the difference between measuring impact and reporting on impact? Responsibilities and accountability differences?
How does one read an impact report and what are some of the most valuable points to focus on?
Where does the data come from?
How do you check the data’s integrity?
Where do you see impact measurement and reporting going? Digital or analogue? Quantitative or qualitative?
What is the main difference between a green bond and a conventional bonds? An insightful conversation with the fixed-income specialist of Asteria Investment Managers, Luca Manera.