Alternative Investments for European Environmental Objectives

In June last year, Bankinter, S.A. – a Spanish financial services company – launched the Ecualia venture capital fund together with its Spanish partner Plenium Partners. They plan to initially raise 175 million Euro among Bankinter’s high-net-worth customers.

The alternative investment vehicle “seeks to stay ahead of the market and invest in sectors that will be decisive in meeting long-term Spanish and EU-wide environmental objectives,” a press release said. “The goal is to offer Bankinter’s institutional and private banking customers the possibility of co-investing hand in hand with the bank in the real economy, specifically, in activities with a positive contribution to the environment and that present attractive medium- and long-term return opportunities for investors.” In the first phase, Bankinter Investment and Plenium Partners planned to analyze various investment options with great potential to generate value in different sectors, including sustainable mobility, decarburization, energy rehabilitation, the circular economy and water management and treatment.

As underlined, Ecualia is the 17th alternative investment vehicle launched by Bankinter Investment in its six-year history. “The minimum investment required for institutional and private banking customers is 200,000 Euro, in addition to the diversification criteria required to ensure that investors’ wealth is not excessively concentrated in a specific sector or type of asset.” The fund would be managed by Plenium Partners, taking this company’s total capital under management to two billion Euro. Of this amount, 1.25 billion Euro had been mobilized jointly with Bankinter over the last five years, focused on investment in renewable energies, student residences and sustainable projects and infrastructures.

Investment in plastic recycling
In July last year, Bankinter’s Investment Banking subsidiary reported that the financial service company and Plenium Partners have reached an agreement with the Spanish firm RepetCo to invest in “a pioneering facility that recycles multilayer PET plastics, providing a solution to a previously unresolved problem through its proprietary clean, sustainable and profitable technology”. According to the information, RepetCo intended to invest 55 million Euro in its plant in Albacete, which is projected to recycle up to 100,000 tons of multilayer PET plastics annually.

www.bankinter.com
www.repetco.com/en

(Published in GLOBAL RECYCLING Magazine 1/2023, Page 11, Photo: Tomáš Strouhal / pixabay.com)