Bankinter Investment is launching Ecualia, an alternative investment vehicle that will help develop key sectors for European environmental objectives
Bankinter's Investment Banking subsidiary is promoting the Ecualia venture capital fund, together with its partner Plenium Partners. They plan to initially raise 175 million euros among Bankinter's high-net-worth customers.
The vehicle seeks to stay ahead of the market and invest in sectors that will be decisive in meeting long-term Spanish and EU-wide environmental objectives.
The goal is to offer Bankinter's institutional and Private Banking customers the possibility of co-investing hand in hand with the bank in the real economy, specifically, in activities with a positive contribution to the environment and that present attractive medium- and long-term return opportunities for investors.
In the first phase, Bankinter Investment and Plenium Partners are analysing various investment options with great potential to generate value in different sectors, including sustainable mobility, decarbonisation, energy rehabilitation, the circular economy and water management and treatment.
Bankinter Investment is creating a new alternative investment vehicle called “Ecualia”, together with its partner Plenium Partners. It will offer its customers investments linked to sectors with a key role in advancing on the long-term roadmap, for Europe and Spain. The initial forecast is to raise close to 175 million euros in capital.
Bankinter Investment is launching its seventeenth alternative investment vehicle after a solid track record begun six years ago with the launch of its first investment vehicle, Ores SOCIMI. Ecualia is structured with a view to offering Bankinter's high-net-worth customers priority access to investments in sectors with great growth potential in the coming years, mainly linked to the environment and to improving the efficiency of energy and natural resources, and taking account of the increasing general awareness regarding change and a backdrop of growing regulatory demands.
With this fund, the bank seeks to anticipate future trends that will help develop critical sectors and activities to achieve the European Union's environmental objectives, such as the Net Zero initiative (to which Bankinter is committed through its adherence to the Net Zero Banking Alliance, sponsored by the United Nations); or the Spanish sectoral decarbonisation targets through the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan 2021-2030 (PNIEC).
Alternative to traditional savings
With its alternative investment vehicles, Bankinter offers its institutional and Private Banking customers an investment option in various sectors, which guarantees portfolio diversification for the conservative savings profile, and which is unconnected to the behaviour of equities and fixed income. The bank always co-invests with its customers in the vehicles, in which it is the main shareholder.
Following the model applied to each of the vehicles launched, the minimum investment required in Ecualia will be 200,000 euros. Also, investors will be subject to a series of diversification criteria established internally so that the customer's assets are not over-concentrated on a specific sector or asset.
Regarding the investment term, a time horizon of seven years is proposed, with expectations of an attractive return for the investor. Recurring payouts are added once the portfolio is fully invested.
Leading provider of alternative investment
This new vehicle is a further step in alternative investment for high-net-worth customers, a business of which Bankinter has become a leading provider in Spain and Portugal.
In Ecualia, Bankinter Investment has again joined forces with Plenium Partners, an independent management and investment firm in the renewable energy sector, which will manage the new vehicle. Bankinter Investment and Plenium Partners already boast a consolidated track record in alternative investment after launching the Helia Renovables venture capital fund, in its successive editions: Helia I, II, III and IV. Bankinter Investment closed the sale of Helia I to the Canadian energy company Northland Power Inc. in April 2021, a highly successful transaction in terms of profitability for Bankinter customers and which was one of the main renewable energy deals in Spain in recent years.
Target sectors
The new vehicle's investment focus is centred on infrastructures and projects with an impact on the real economy and links with the main European environmental initiatives, many of which are likely to be beneficiaries of EU funds. During the first phase, Bankinter Investment is analysing specific opportunities in various sectors, such as sustainable mobility, decarbonisation, energy rehabilitation, circular economy and water management and treatment. However, the vehicle is open to opportunities from other sectors that fit with the fund's investment strategy.