Responsible Investor of the Year

Bowmark Capital

Bowmark’s purpose is to ‘invest with intent’. This means having a meaningful social and environmental impact, while delivering market-leading returns. We also aim to empower and enrich the employees of our portfolio companies, promoting wider employee ownership and wealth distribution. 

During the period, we completed successful exits valued at £2.2 billion, after creating 450 new employee shareholders in these companies, a ten-fold increase under our ownership. 

In addition, we invested in Cornwall Insight, which provides critical data to enable its customers navigate the transition to net zero; Kubrick, a consulting firm which enhances social mobility and diversity in the technology industry; and WSD, which promotes regulatory compliance for a financial market worth $3 trillion. 

We also: 

• achieved a Glassdoor rating of 4.2 across our portfolio; 
• implemented carbon foot-printing across our portfolio; 
• implemented an annual cross-portfolio D&I data collection initiative, generating >1,200 responses; 
• introduced third-party ESG due diligence for all investments on exit; 
• recruited a dedicated ESG manager, and expanded the membership of our ESG team to six; 
• reduced Bowmark’s carbon emissions by over 40%; 
• increased our team by 29%, of whom 55% were female; and 
• supported our charity partner, PiP, through 120 hours volunteering and funding its social enterprise, Fruitful.

NorthEdge

NorthEdge take their responsibilities seriously – as both employers and investors. They work to build better businesses that are both sustainable and diverse, recognising that it’s not only the right thing to do, but because it makes businesses more valuable for all stakeholders. 

Ahead of investment they complete comprehensive ESG screens to understand the key risks and opportunities ahead of any investment decision. Following investment, they factor this information into the Value Creation Plan to ensure the company delivers sustainable improvement through NorthEdge’s investment and beyond. 

To monitor ongoing performance they have set up a dedicated ESG committee as a formalised focus group to review ESG developments and trends in the external market, internally at NorthEdge and across their portfolio. They also run regular ESG portfolio surveys to ensure their portfolio are continuously improving their impact on the environment, society, and their communities. 

Finally from a D&I perspective they have created a set of recruitment guidance to access a wider pool of diverse talent, carried out regular D&I surveys to continue making progress in the space and shared best practice on their digital community platform, Nexus, and through their portfolio-wide forums.

Frog Capital

Frog’s core focus is investing in European purpose-led Software Scale-Ups and providing them with world-class guidance to support them scale their business quickly and sustainably, and retain their focus on purpose. We call this Positive Growth Equity. 

Our recent investments include Clue Software, which helps fight crime, Evotix, which supports health & safety professionals, and several other European purpose-led businesses. 

Our approach to delivering Positive Growth Equity runs right through our business, from how we invest in our team, sourcing and selecting our investors and investments, to how we conduct portfolio management. 

We have been a purpose-driven business since we launched and have always prioritised ‘doing’ rather than ‘talking’, making sure our processes and policies are robust with commitment to continuous improvement. We are a signatory of the PRI and use the IMP Impact Management Platform to assess and manage our portfolio's sustainability impacts. We also follow SASB standards and measure ESG data with a specialist software platform called Metric.

Kartesia

Kartesia’s vision is to be recognised as one of the leading investors based on not just returns but crucially its responsible approach to investing capital. As such, responsible investment and a broader integrated strategy around sustainability is fundamental to how we do business and is deeply embedded within our values and culture. 

At Kartesia, we believe that companies with high environmental, social and governance standards are typically better run, have fewer business risks and ultimately deliver better value for investors. We therefore consider the assessment and management of ESG issues as a key component of the application of its values and have anchored responsible investment into our investment philosophy and process. This includes rigorous assessment of ESG topics at the due diligence phase for every investment but also regular touchpoints with management teams and sponsors to ensure that key targets and indicators are showing necessary signs of improvement throughout the investment cycle. 

However, we also believe that our responsibility to act sustainably and responsibly is relevant at a company level and that our own activity must reflect those standards we insist upon at a portfolio company and sponsor level. As such, we have implemented training programmes and other initiatives, like Kartesia for Women (encouraging greater representation in the private debt industry) to ensure that all employees, not just the ESG team, are aware of the reputational and perform.

Voting is now closed

 To find out who won book a table at the British Private Equity Awards on 04 October 2022 by contacting Chris Coe.