Impact Investing

There was around $20bn of impact secondaries volume last year, attendees at PEI Group’s Impact Investor Global Summit 2025 heard last week.

The firm closed its fourth dedicated impact secondaries fund on $252.2m in July, short of its $350m target.

Commonfund Environmental Solutions II has sleeves for private equity fund investments, direct and co-investments, secondaries and real assets.

Clean Growth VI is 60% invested and its first distributions are scheduled for later this month.

Secondaries investors – such as Kline Hill Partners and North Sky Capital – can make primary fund commitments for a number of reasons.

While impact secondaries transactions remain a relatively small part of overall secondaries volume, these vehicles can offer more certainty around impact-linked growth stories compared with their blind-pool counterparts.

CFES 2 is a multi-strategy impact fund, NPM has learned – the latest in a handful of climate and impact funds with secondaries strategies.

Impact investing, especially in emerging markets, is a new frontier for most investors; secondaries transactions will ease them in.

Blue Earth’s secondaries strategy – part of its soon-to-launch multi-strategy fund – has just acquired a portfolio of fund stakes from a UK development finance institution.

Quilvest Capital Partners and Unigestion led the transaction, which is believed to be the first Article 9 continuation vehicle.