Golding’s successful secondaries strategy strengthens its ESG approach and classifies as Article 8 SFDR strategy

Richard Wilmes, Partner & Head of Secondaries, and Christian Schütz, Managing Director & Head of Sustainable Investing

Munich – Golding Capital Partners, one of Europe's leading independent asset managers for alternative investments, has refined its sophisticated ESG screening model and so extended full ESG transparency to its secondary market products. The existing Golding Secondaries 2022 fund now classifies as an investment product in line with Article 8 of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).

The successful classification as an Article 8 product is based on the continued development of Golding’s differentiated screening process, in which the required ESG characteristics are verified at the level of the underlying portfolio companies. A particular focus is on Golding’s detailed analysis of the concrete investments, and the due diligence carried out by Golding and the general partners (GPs).

Our enhanced scoring model incorporates several leading ESG guidelines, including the sector-related ESG aspects of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and the concept of double materiality that features in the European ESG regulations. The process enables sound ESG transparency, especially for secondaries transactions. This in turn creates the basis for classifying Golding Secondaries 2022 as an Article 8 fund within the meaning of the SFDR. This achievement is the result of close cooperation between our internal ESG and secondaries experts, and our GPs and external specialists.

Christian Schütz, Managing Director & Head of Sustainable Investing at Golding

 

There is no change to our proven investment strategy for the Golding Secondaries 2022 fund, which will benefit in future from the increased ESG transparency of our investments.

Richard Wilmes, Partner & Head of Secondaries at Golding 

 

The secondaries fund has a target volume of €500 million and will invest in a broadly diversified buyout portfolio of more than 100 small and mid-cap companies, mostly in Europe. Its target sectors include highly profitable, resilient industries with strong growth potential, such as services, IT and communications. Investors in secondaries are able to flatten the J-curve and currently profit from the attractive discounts on secondary market transactions, even for funds managed by established GPs.

Golding Secondaries 2022 is nearing the end of its fundraising phase, with a final closing planned for the end of the year 2024.