The private debt specialist will provide financing to firms offering solutions in climate, health, education and other areas.
Asset manager APG and institutional investor TIAA are backing a new private debt impact strategy from Arcmont Asset Management, via separate mandates totalling €475m.
Arcmont is one of the first private debt firms of its size to launch an impact lending strategy, according to its CEO Anthony Fobel. Under the strategy, debt financing will be made available to companies providing services and products tackling environmental and social challenges in the areas of climate, health, education and sustainable economic growth.
Arcmont is a UK-based affiliate of Nuveen, the investment manager for TIAA, which is a US-based financial services non-profit with global holdings focused on retirement services. APG is the largest pension services provider in the Netherlands, handling the pensions of 4.6 million participants.
Bridgespan Social Impact has collaborated with Arcmont on development of the impact strategy, which aims to provide financial returns alongside environmental impact to be measured based on industry frameworks. Impact management is being aligned with the Operating Principles for Impact Management, with independent impact verification provided by BlueMark.
KPI reporting
Arcmont said impact considerations would be “integrated throughout the investment lifecycle and a rigorous impact due diligence process”, and that it would report on outcome impact KPIs for investments, so investors could understand what social and environmental outcomes had been achieved.
Menno van den Elsaker, head of alternative credits at APG, said his company wanted to be at the forefront of impact investing.
“Through this partnership with Arcmont, we can deliver attractive investment returns for our clients [Dutch pension funds] ABP, bpfBOUW and PPF APG, while contributing to their ambitious impact objectives,” he said.
Arcmont declined to comment on progress with its investment pipeline under the strategy, but it is believed the first transaction under the new mandates has already closed.
The investor has committed over €33bn in total across more than 420 transactions covering 12 European countries, since it was established in 2011. It was acquired by Nuveen in 2023, which kept Arcmont’s pre-existing leadership team in place.
Nuveen itself unveiled a new impact credit strategy in October 2024, having raised $170m to be focused on social inequality reduction and combatting climate change impacts.
Private debt is typically taken on as an impact strategy by those with relatively long-term investment horizons, given investments may be locked up for long periods. In a 2024 report on the topic, Phoenix Capital said foundations comprised around a fifth of private debt impact funds on its global database, followed by fund of fund managers, banks, pension funds and development finance institutions, each with around a 10% share of the total.
