Legal & General’s alternative asset platform has backed a women-led emerging-market infrastructure company set up by two former JP Morgan directors.
Legal & General Capital has invested an undisclosed sum to become a “significant minority shareholder” in ImpactA Global, an investment it said will help support the impact investment advisory firm’s strategy to deploy capital into sustainable infrastructure projects.
ImpactA, was founded by ex-JP Morgan directors Isabella da Costa Mendes and Victoria Miles, who serve as co-CEOs. The company’s senior team also includes Susan Ward and Audrey Caulliez-Louis as partners.
Laura Mason, the CEO of Legal & General Capital, said: “We are delighted to become a significant minority shareholder in ImpactA, and look forward to working in partnership with the ambitious, impact-driven investment advisory firm.”
Mason said the partnership with ImpactA forms part of Legal & General Capital’s mandate to “take strategic minority” general partner stakes in managers of alternative assets.
Legal & General Capital’s previous transactions include investments in European private-credit manager Pemberton and in European sustainable energy through a partnership with NTR.
Da Costa Mendes said: “There is an urgent and pressing need to address the critical social and environmental challenges that the world is facing, in particular in emerging markets. We believe in the potential of impact investing to unlock the capital to meet these challenges.”
Co-CEO Miles, who is also CIO of ImpactA, said: “We have launched ImpactA because we believe that closing the infrastructure gap is key to maintaining economic growth and reducing income inequality in the Global South.
“We saw an opportunity to launch an infrastructure debt fund focused exclusively on emerging markets, a market overlooked by traditional players.”
Miles was previously a managing director in JP Morgan’s London emerging markets team. Da Costa Mendes led structuring teams at Renaissance Capital, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan, where she spent over 10 years in credit markets.
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