Mirova, a Natixis Investment Managers affiliate dedicated to sustainable finance, has created a position focussed on relationships with development finance institutions (DFIs) in a bid to grow the use of blended finance for impact financing in emerging markets.
The role is linked to Mirova’s strategic plan to double its unlisted assets by 2030 and to accelerate the financing of solutions with a high environmental and social impact in Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region.
Mirova in particular aims to do this by developing blended finance strategies aimed at financing energy transition infrastructure projects and projects to restore and conserve natural ecosystems.
To help it do this, it has appointed Sébastien Duquet as head of relations with DFIs.
Zineb Bennani, global head of business development at Mirova, said Duquet’s experience and relationships with development banks would be “invaluable in raising even more capital for projects with a high environmental and social impact in emerging countries”.
Duquet has been with Mirova since 2022 following the acquisition of Mirova SunFunder, a specialist in climate investment in emerging countries, where he was in charge of business development.
Duquet was previously chief investment officer and deputy managing director of the impact management company Symbiotics and earlier in his career he headed PlaNIS, which merged with responsAbility in 2010.
At responsAbility, he was in charge of debt investments in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. In total over a 10-year period, he was involved in 73 transactions, mainly in the banking sector, in France and in emerging markets.
Blended finance is a key focus for some in sustainable finance, with the Net Zero Asset Owners Alliance for example having identified scaling up blended finance as one of the most efficient ways to de-risk investments in climate solutions and in market segments that currently do not have the risk-return profiles to attract large-scale institutional capital.
At COP28 Danish mutual pensions firm Velliv called for more blended finance that fits institutional investors’ risk profile.
Duquet said DFIs “effectively act as a catalyst to increase private sector investment in emerging countries and are therefore essential to accelerate efforts to promote access to low-carbon energy and to protect and restore ecosystems”.
Earlier this month Mirova announced that its Gigaton Fund 1, a blended finance debt fund that aims to accelerate the clean-energy transition in emerging markets, has so far raised $282m (€259m), including a $75m commitment from the European Investment Bank.
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