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• Each year Bridges publishes headline figures on some of the social and environmental impact achieved across its platform of funds, alongside its key commercial highlights
• The focus of this year’s report is on what Bridges has learned about using an impact-driven approach to create value at different stages of the investment cycle
• This year has seen a number of important milestones for the impact investment market

Bridges Ventures (“Bridges”), the specialist sustainable and impact investor, has released its latest Annual Impact Report, after a year that has seen some important milestones for both Bridges and the impact investing market more broadly.

Bridges added to its platform of funds by closing the £212m Property Alternatives Fund III – its largest fund to date – while also seeing a number of notable exits from its growth, property and, significantly, its social sector funds.

Meanwhile, sustainable and impact investing has continued to attract ever-greater interest from leading investors and major financial institutions: BlackRock, Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs (through its acquisition of Imprint Capital) all moved into the market this year.

In its latest Annual Impact Report, Bridges – which has specialised in sustainable and impact investing since 2002 – highlights some of the positive social and environmental outcomes achieved by its platform of funds this year, in addition to those key financial milestones. By doing so, it hopes to illustrate some of the ways in which impact investing can, over time, deliver on its promise to produce better societal outcomes alongside attractive returns for investors.

For instance, in the last year, Bridges portfolio investments have:

• Helped learners gain over 4,000 qualifications
• Moved over 1,000 previously unemployed people into jobs
• Provided quality at-home care to nearly 3,000 individuals
• Reduced carbon emissions across our property portfolio by an average of 50%
• Prevented over 800 young people from dropping out of education, employment and training

Michele Giddens, partner and co-founder of Bridges, said:

“This has been a year of significant milestones for Bridges: the close of our new property fund, our first ever non-UK investments, the first social impact bonds in the world to repay investors, and latterly, the IPO of The Gym Group, which we co-founded in 2006, at a £250m valuation. We believe that all of this further vindicates our long-held thesis that impact and attractive financial returns can go hand-in-hand. In this report, which outlines some of the specific social and environmental impacts our funds have been able to achieve this year, we’ve tried to explain how our impact focus helps to create additional financial value at every stage of the investment cycle – in the hope that this might encourage additional flows of capital to investments of this kind.”

PRESS CONTACTS

For Bridges:
Michele Giddens
Marina Aung
+44 20 3780 8000

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NOTES TO EDITORS

About Bridges Ventures (www.bridgesventures.com)

Bridges Ventures LLP is a specialist fund manager focused exclusively on sustainable and impact investment, with offices in London and New York. It invests in high-impact SMEs, properties and social sector organisations that can generate superior returns for both investors and society as a whole, focusing on four key impact ‘themes’: health & wellbeing, education, sustainable living and under-served markets. It manages almost £600 million across its Sustainable Growth, Property and Social Sector funds.