Eoin Murray, Head of Investment at Federated Hermes Limited and Alice Millest, Investment Director at Finance Earth joined us for an interactive roundtable to unearth how blended finance solutions can help meet the UK’s nature funding gap, and support the delivery of its nature and climate goals.
Delegates heard how investments across a range of real assets including peatland, woodland and emerging ecosystems, as well as private equity investment into sustainable aquaculture and green impact SMEs (small to medium-sized enterprises) can deliver for people, nature and the green economy.
Martin Pattinson, Director of Pensions for Purpose, hosted the event which included plenty of opportunity for discussion and Q&A.
Watch Federated Hermes' video*
Who was this event for?
This event was open to asset owners such as pension fund trustees, in-house executives and independent advisers, professional trustees, government representatives and consultants.
Sponsor
Speakers' biography
Eoin Murray, Head of Investment, Federated Hermes Limited
Eoin is Head of Investment and a member of the Senior Management Team for Federated Hermes Limited. Eoin also leads the Investment Office, which is responsible to clients for the investment teams’ consistent delivery of responsible, risk-adjusted performance and adherence to the processes which earned them their ‘kitemarks’. He is also the Executive sponsor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
With almost 30 years’ investment experience,. Eoin joined in January 2015 from GSA Capital Partners where he was a fund manager. Before this, he was Chief Investment Officer at Old Mutual from 2004 to 2008, and also held senior positions at Callanish Capital Partners LLP and Northern Trust Global Investments. He began his career as a graduate trainee at Manufacturers Hanover Trust (now JPMorgan Chase) and subsequently performed senior portfolio manager roles at Wells Fargo Nikko Investment Advisors (now BlackRock), PanAgora Asset Management and First Quadrant.
Eoin earned an MA (Hons) in Economics and Law from the University of Edinburgh and an MBA from Warwick Business School. Additionally, he has a Certificate in Energy Innovation and Emerging Technologies from Stanford University and a Diploma in Specialist Rescue from Coventry University. Eoin is currently studying for a Masters in Sustainable Aquaculture at St Andrew’s University.
Eoin is a Freeman of the City of London, a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths, Master of the Guild of Investment Managers, and a Fellow of the RSA.
Alice Millest, Investment Director, Finance Earth
Alice joined Finance Earth in 2021 and has worked across investment designs and launch as well as investment readiness programmes and investment structuring.
Alice previously focused on investor engagement as part of the Blue Impact Fund raise, alongside work to refine the impact criteria, reporting framework and performance management tools for the Fund. As part of this work Alice has been an active member of the Sustainable Seafood Working Group within the UN environment programme Sustainable Blue Economy initiative.
Complementing her UK focused marine work, Alice has led the team designing an international Blue Carbon Accelerator with the Blue Marine Foundation. Over the course of 2021, Finance Earth have worked to understand the blue carbon landscape – the financial and non-financial needs of fledgling projects – and are working to develop a funding mechanism that will support potential blue carbon projects that are currently delayed and stunted in their development.
Alice has worked in the impact investing sector since 2014 and has experience advising funds and foundations on their investment activity as well as direct support of enterprises and charities on business development and investment raising.
Alice has held roles at Social Finance and the European Venture Philanthropy Association, as well as working independently as a consultant.
Prior to joining the impact sector, Alice worked for Ares Fund Management and Investec Bank, structuring debt instruments for small and medium private equity owned businesses in the UK.
Host
Martin Pattinson, Director, Pensions for Purpose
Martin has spent over 40 years in a variety of roles in property, banking and asset management across North America, Asia and EMEA, but especially in the UK institutional marketplace.
At Pensions for Purpose, Martin helps host our forums and works with colleagues on our engagement programme, contributing to bring our members together to inform, share knowledge, influence and advise, to achieve environmental and societal impact investment.
Place-Based Impact Investing Forum and Paris Alignment Forum
This event is jointly hosted by the Place-Based Impact Investing Forum and the Paris Alignment Forum.
The Place-Based Impact Investing Forum was established by Pensions for Purpose and The Good Economy and is run in partnership with the Impact Investing Institute to help pension funds and other asset owners make informed decisions about place-based investments. We do this by sharing place-based-related thought leadership written by our members (asset managers, consultants and lawyers), by running training workshops for trustees and by engaging in industry-wide conversation through our quarterly all-stakeholder and asset-owner events. To join the Place-Based Impact Investing Forum please email the Forum Lead.
The Paris Alignment Forum was established by Pensions for Purpose to help pension funds and other asset owners on their journey to align with the goals of the Paris Agreement. We do this by sharing climate-related thought leadership written by our members (asset managers, consultants and lawyers), by running free training workshops for trustees and by engaging in industry-wide conversation through our quarterly all-stakeholder and asset-owner events. To join the Paris Alignment Forum, please email the Forum Lead.
Pensions for Purpose
Pensions for Purpose exists as a bridge between asset managers, pension funds and their professional advisers, to encourage the flow of capital towards impact investment. Our aim is to empower pension funds to seek positive impact opportunities and mitigate negative impact risks. For more information, please email the Membership Manager.
Federated Hermes Disclaimer
The value of investments and income from them may go down as well as up, and you may not get back the original amount invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results and targets are not guaranteed.
For professional investors only. This is a marketing communication. This document does not constitute a solicitation or offer to any person to buy or sell any related securities, financial instruments or products. It pays no regard to an individual’s investment objectives or financial needs of any recipient. No action should be taken or omitted to be taken based on this document. Tax treatment depends on personal circumstances and may change. This document is not advice on legal, taxation or investment matters so investors must rely on their own examination of such matters or seek advice. Before making any investment (new or continuous), please consult a professional and/or investment adviser as to its suitability. All figures, unless otherwise indicated, are sourced from Hermes GPE LLP (‘Hermes GPE’).
Any decision to invest in the UK Nature Impact Fund LP and/or the Big Nature Impact Fund LP (UKNI) should be made after reviewing the applicable final Memorandum and/or legal documents, conducting such investigations as you, the prospective investor/client, deem necessary and after consulting your own Legal, accounting, financial and tax advisors in order to make an independent determination of the suitability and consequences of any such investment or appointment.
UKNI is a closed ended vehicle investing into illiquid and long-term asset classes. UKNI has environmental and/or social characteristics and so may perform differently to other strategies, as its exposures reflect its sustainability criteria. Terminology, such as “ESG integrated”, “sustainable” or “impact”, among other terms, is not uniformly defined across the industry. Investment managers may understand and apply ESG factors in different ways, and that the role those factors play in investment decisions also varies. Therefore, we recommend investors understand the role of ESG factors in a Strategy to ensure that approach is consistent with their investment objectives. Like any aspect of investment analysis, there is no guarantee that an investment Strategy that considers ESG factors will result in performance better than or equal to products that do not consider such factors. Investing and making buy and sell decisions that emphasize ESG factors carries the risk that, under certain market conditions, the strategy may underperform those that do not incorporate such factors explicitly into the decision-making process. The application of ESG criteria may affect exposure to certain sectors or securities and may impact relative investment performance depending on whether such sectors or securities are generally in or out of favour in the market. There is no guarantee that UKNI will deliver any environmental, social or other target indicated to potential investors herein. UKNI will invest into living habitats which are subject to natural risks, including wildfire and disease. UKNI will invest into assets which are subject to pricing fluctuations (carbon and biodiversity market risk) and will invest into assets which interact with a policy framework that could be subject to change over time.
Finance Earth is a trading name of Environmental Finance Limited, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FRN No: 831569. Registered Address: W106 Vox Studios, 1-45 Durham Street, SE11 5JH. Registered in England and Wales under Company Number 8195029.
Issued and approved by Hermes GPE which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registered address: Sixth Floor, 150 Cheapside, London EC2V 6ET. Hermes GPE is a registered investment adviser with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Hermes GPE (Singapore) Pte Ltd is regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Telephone calls may be recorded for training and monitoring purposes.
To the extent that anything on this website constitutes a financial promotion it is exempt from the general prohibition in S21 of FSMA on the basis that the site is only intended for investment professionals as such term is defined in S19 of the Financial Promotions Order. Please note that Pensions for Purpose does not provide consultancy services, advice or personal recommendations on any of the investment opportunities mentioned on the platform. We curate content written by Influencer members and do not endorse any underlying funds.
Watch recording here
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