Australia impact GP hits $48m first close on debut fund

The first close on Social Impact Fund I (SIF I) came just before Christmas, Andrew Thorburn, an executive director at the firm, told Mergermarket, AVCJ’s sister title. There are more than 100 LPs, with 70% of the current corpus coming from individuals and families, and the rest from institutions, predominantly charitable foundations.

“Obviously it’s been supported by high net worth individuals, family offices, and foundations at the first stage, but what we hope to see is institutional capital being deployed,” said Thorburn, a former CEO of NAB and Bank of New Zealand. A second close of AUD 150m has been pencilled in for later this year.

Melbourne-based FPIP was established with support from M.H. Carnegie & Co. to invest in projects and organisations that deliver strong and long-term positive social outcomes. It is looking to write cheques of AUD10m to AUD 30m in five key areas with significant social needs: skilled education, aged care, mental health, disability, and social and affordable housing.

“We chose those because they are all large sectors, growing sectors, and sectors with real social needs,” Thorburn said, adding that co-investment could be utilised to address larger deals.

Over the past two years, prior to raising the fund, FPIP made two investments, backing care service education specialist Catalyst Education and disability housing provider Summer Housing. Envisaged exit routes include selling to larger impact funds, mergers with other strategic players, or even taking out equity positions with bank debt.

SIF I is pursuing social impact investments that generate appropriate risk-weighted returns, with a blended net return target of 9-10%. “We can prove that you don’t have to make trade-offs in returns,” said Thorburn.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Fundraising
• GPs
• Growth
• Australia
• Impact investment