Climate focused investment company Climate Endowment Group has teamed up with eHydro500, an interdisciplinary team of hydropower experts, to create an institutional investment fund focused on investing in midsized hydropower plants across Europe.
The “Climate Endowment Hydropower Fund” has been set up to give institutional investors better and direct access to hydropower energy, foster the refurbishment of existing and the construction of new medium-sized hydropower plants, and contribute to achieving the climate targets set in the Paris COP-21 agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The fund focuses on investments in European hydroelectric power plants with an installed capacity of 10 to 50MW each, diversified between the construction of new plants (Greenfield) and the acquisition and modernization of existing plants (Brownfield).
The open-ended fund is part of the Luxembourg Impact Investment Fund platform initiated by Munich-based Nixdorf Kapital AG, a Luxemburg “Regulated Alternative Investment Manager” (RAIF), managed by Hauck & Aufhäuser, Private bankers since 1796. It can be subscribed to by professional investors only.
The Climate Endowment Hydropower Fund (CEHF) aims to raise €500m to create, over several years, a portfolio based on an identified project pipeline, that is suited for institutional investors.
The investment team consists of experienced capital market investors, entrepreneurs and engineers, including hydropower experts Dr Günther Rabensteiner, former member of the Managing Board of the Verbund Group, and Dr Gilbert Frizberg, the former Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Verbund Group, as well as Wolfgang Kröpfl, the CEO of enso GmbH, a European hydropower asset manager, and Jürgen Jelly, the founder of itom invest GmbH, an M&A boutique focusing on renewable energies.
The team is complemented by experienced international investors Stephen Blyth, former CEO of the Harvard Endowment, Philippe Desfossés, former CEO of ERAFP, the largest French pension fund and Vice President of the International Investor Group on Climate Change, Jochen Wermuth, climate impact investor serving on the investment committee of Germany’s Sovereign Wealth Fund KENFO founder of the Green Growth Funds and family office Wermuth Asset Management GmbH, Markus Bodenmeier, a successful serial entrepreneur, and Patrick Horend who previously worked for ADIC, a large middle-east sovereign wealth fund also committed to long-term, endowment-style investments.
