The Asian Development Bank (ADB), ORIX Corporation (ORIX) and the Robeco Assets Management Company have declared the establishment of the Asian Climate Private Equity (ACP) Fund today. The fund will focus on commercialized private equity investment in fields which include a whole series of environmental support and low carbon trading in Asia. Located in Hong Kong, ACP will have a joint investment of 400 million US dollars from its general partners or fund initiators and at the same time will be managed by a team of professionals with rich management experience in private equity investment operations, mainly focusing on investment in marketization, rewarding renewable energy sources, clean technologies, natural resource efficiency, water, agriculture, forestry and other environmentally-friendly enterprises and trading, and aiming to make a positive contribution to environmental and climate influences.

“We are confident that the ACP Fund will provide an innovative platform for investments relevant to the environment and produce attractive returns.” Secretary-general of the ADB Private Sector Operation Department, Todd Freeland, said. He emphasized: “ACP will benefit from the management of investment operations of Robeco Group, ORIX Corporation, and ADB in the low carbon industry. The fund initiators invested a mass of financial resources, human resources, and material resources in the fund, which will help ACP to a position of distinguished investors in Asian assets from the beginning and give out a strong signal to the market, namely our confidence in investment strategy and rate of returns”. Asia is one of the areas with the fastest economic development in the world, but at the same time it faces environmental problems including poor quality of air and water, insufficient supply of energy, waste of natural resources and insufficient capital contribution in these problems. The investments in new energy and resource efficiency will allow a two- to three-fold increase in a few decades.

“I am very glad that ADB chose Robeco as the main investment manager in this joint venture,” a manager of Rebeco Leni Boeren said, “This is another milestone for us to successfully cooperate with ORIX Corporation and provide a considerable investment opportunity in Asia for our investors. We believe that our recognized specialty in energy efficiency, continuity and private equity investments will help us make outstanding contributions to ACP's eventual success.”

“ORIX has successfully established an extensive network via its investment, operations and managerial experience in Asia over nearly 40 years.” Senior Vice President of ORIX Corporation, Yuichi Nishigori, said. He also said: “We are dedicated to the energy environmental protection industry. Our ACP manpower and financial resource support represent our confidence in this industry. Asian countries need rapid and sustainable economic growth and must meet people's pursuit for increasing living standards. This measure will help to provide necessary funds for Asian economic entities to meet these demands.