UOB’s Private Equity Arm Achieves Impact Milestone

The firm has also obtained verification from Ernst & Young for its Asia Impact Investment Fund’s alignment with the World Bank’s impact investing principles.

UOB Venture Management (UOBVM) has issued its disclosure statement on the Operating Principles for Impact Management, becoming the first signatory of the Impact Principles in Southeast Asia to do so, the bank announced in a statement on Tuesday.

UOBVM’s disclosure statement demonstrates how it upholds the Impact Principles through its impact investing strategy and approach, in particular for its Asia Impact Investment Fund (AIIF), ensuring that impact considerations are purposefully integrated into key stages of the investment process.

Launched in 2015 together with Credit Suisse, the $55-million fund invests in high-growth companies from the education, healthcare, and agriculture sectors in Southeast Asia and China. It also focuses on investments that will help to improve financial inclusion, affordable housing, sanitation, clean energy, and water for the region’s low-income communities.

The Impact Principles provide a clear market standard for investors looking to achieve social, economic or environmental impact alongside financial returns. With this disclosure statement and independent verification, UOBVM enters a new era of transparency for the benefit of impact investors, Nicolas Marquier, Singapore country manager of IFC, said.

UOB has also opened its second impact fund for subscriptions. The fund has a target fund size range of $100 million and is expected to make equity investments of about $1 million to $15 million each, the announcement said.

The need for impact investments is even more pressing now with the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacting low-income communities in Asia and pushing more people below the poverty line, Seah Kian Wee, chief executive officer of UOBVM, said.