Rockefeller Asset Management Launches Climate Solutions Fund, Expanding Audience for Strategy with 9-Year Track Record
New York, September 23, 2021
Rockefeller Asset Management (RAM), a division of Rockefeller Capital Management, recently launched the Rockefeller Climate Solutions Fund (RKCIX), seeking long-term capital growth by investing in companies focused on climate change mitigation or adaptation solutions across the market capitalization spectrum. The Fund, which launched with nearly $100mn in assets and several underlying investors, was converted from a Limited Partnership structure with the same investment objective and a 9-year track record. In addition, the firm has partnered with Skypoint Capital Partners as the Fund’s third-party wholesale marketing agent.
RAM, in collaboration with The Ocean Foundation (TOF), established the Climate Solutions Strategy nine years ago based on the belief that climate change will transform economies and markets through changing regulation, shifting buying preferences from next-generation consumers, and technological advancements. This global equity strategy deploys a high conviction, bottom-up approach to investing in pure-play companies with meaningful revenue exposure to key environmental sectors such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, water, waste management, pollution control, food & sustainable agriculture, healthcare mitigation, and climate support services. The portfolio managers have long believed that there is significant investment opportunity in these public companies producing climate mitigation and adaptation solutions and that they have the potential to outperform broader equity markets over the long-term.
Rockefeller Climate Solutions Fund is co-managed by Casey Clark, CFA, and Rolando Morillo, who lead RAM’s thematic equity strategies, leveraging the intellectual capital built from RAM’s three decades of Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) investing experience. Since the inception of the Climate Solutions Strategy, RAM has also benefited from the environmental and scientific expertise of The Ocean Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to conserving ocean environments around the world. Mark J. Spalding, the President of TOF, and his team serve as advisors and research collaborators to help bridge the gap between science and investing and contribute to the strategies, idea generation, research, and engagement process.
Rolando Morillo, Fund Portfolio Manager, says: “Climate change is becoming a defining issue of our time. We believe investors can generate alpha and positive outcomes by investing in companies producing climate mitigation or adaption solutions with distinct competitive advantages, clear growth catalysts, strong management teams, and attractive earnings potential.”
“RAM has been committed to continuously reinvesting in its investment team and ESG-integrated platform to support significant demand for its strategies, including thematic offerings like Climate Solutions, globally. The original LP structure was designed for clients of our family office. After nearly a decade, we are excited to make the strategy accessible to an expanded audience through the launch of our 40 Act Fund,” said Laura Esposito, Head of Institutional and Intermediary Distribution.
About Rockefeller Asset Management (RAM)
Rockefeller Asset Management, a division of Rockefeller Capital Management, offers equity and fixed income strategies across active, multi-factor passive, and thematic approaches that seek outperformance over multiple market cycles, driven by a disciplined investment process and a highly collaborative team culture. With over 30 years of experience in global investing and ESG-integrated research, we pair our distinctive worldview and long-term investment horizon with thorough fundamental research combining traditional and non-traditional analysisgenerating insights and outcomes not commonly found in the investment community. As of June 30, 2021, Rockefeller Asset Management had $12.5B in assets under management. For more information visit https://rcm.rockco.com/ram.
About The Ocean Foundation
The Ocean Foundation (TOF) is an international community foundation based in Washington D.C., established in 2003. As the only community foundation for the ocean, its mission is to support, strengthen, and promote organizations dedicated to reversing the trend of destruction of ocean environments around the world. This model enables the foundation to serve donors (expert management of a portfolio of grants and grantmaking), generate new ideas (develop and share content on emerging threats, potential solutions, or better strategies for implementation), and nurture implementors (help them be as effective as they can be). The Ocean Foundation and its current staff have been working on ocean and climate change issues since 1990; on Ocean Acidification since 2003; and on related “blue carbon” issues since 2007. For more information visit https://oceanfdn.org/.
About Skypoint Capital Partners
Skypoint Capital Partners is an open architecture distribution and marketing platform offering allocators of capital access to a highly-selective group of active managers capable of delivering alpha through proven investment discipline and superior security selection. Skypoint’s platform uniquely aligns distribution and portfolio management, by creating direct access to investment decision makers, and keeping investors connected through a variety of economic conditions and cycles. The firm has offices in both Atlanta, GA and Los Angeles, CA. For more information contact info@skypoint.com or visit www.skypointcapital.com.
The material is for informational purposes only and should not be regarded as a recommendation or an offer to buy or sell any product or service to which this information may relate. Certain products and services may not be available to all entities or persons.
Alpha is a measure of the active return on an investment, the performance of that investment compared with a suitable market index. An alpha of 1% means the investment’s return on investment over a selected period of time was 1% better than the market during that same period; a negative alpha means the investment underperformed the market.
An investment in the Fund involves risk; principal loss is possible. There is no guarantee the Fund’s investment objectives will be achieved. The value of equity and fixed income securities may decline significantly over short or extended periods of time. More information on these risk considerations, as well as information on other risks to which the Fund is subject are included in the Fund’s prospectus.
The Fund will focus its investment activities on companies offering climate change mitigation or adaptation products and services. There is no guarantee that these themes will generate profitable investment opportunities for the Fund, or that the Adviser will be successful in identifying profitable investment opportunities within these investment themes. The Fund’s focus on environmental criteria will limit the number of investment opportunities available to the Fund as compared to other mutual funds with broader investment objectives, and as a result, the Fund may underperform funds that are not subject to similar investment considerations. Portfolio companies may be significantly affected by environmental considerations, taxation, government regulation (including the increased cost of compliance), inflation, increases in interest rates, price and supply fluctuations, increases in the cost of raw materials and other operating costs, technological advances, and 3 competition from new market entrants. In addition, companies may share common characteristics and be subject to similar business risks and regulatory burdens. A downturn in the demand for climate change mitigation and adaptation products and services is likely to have a significant negative impact on the value of the Fund’s investments. As a result of these and other factors, the Fund’s portfolio investments are expected to be volatile, which may result in significant investment losses to the Fund.
The Fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses must be considered carefully before investing. The summary and statutory prospectus contains this and other important information about the investment company, and may be obtained by calling 1.855.460.2838, or visiting www.rockefellerfunds.com. Read it carefully before investing.
Rockefeller Capital Management is the marketing name of Rockefeller & Co. LLC, the adviser to the Fund. Rockefeller Asset Management is a division of Rockefeller & Co. LLC, an investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). The registrations and memberships above in no way imply that the SEC has endorsed the entities, products or services discussed herein. Additional information is available upon request. The Rockefeller Funds are distributed by Quasar Distributors, LLC.