Mark van Wyk, Portfolio Manager

The Mergence High Impact Debt Fund, run by Mark van Wyk of Mergence Investment Managers in South Africa, has been successfully rated by the Global Impact Investing Rating System (GIIRS). The fund is classified as one of 53 global pioneer funds globally. It is one of only two funds in South Africa to have been rated by GIIRS and one of five on the African continent.

The Mergence High Impact Debt Fund was formed in 2010 to provide South African institutional investors with long-term capital growth while promoting environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. It has key investments, among others, in the Trust for Urban Housing Finance (TUHF), Lendcor, SA Taxi Finance Solutions and Eduloan.

Mr van Wyk said: “Impact investing is rapidly becoming formalised through the GIIRS system. Investors can now get analytics on the underlying investments and measure the positive contribution that projects are making to addressing social needs.

“Impact investing provides an answer to the new Code of Responsible Investing in South Africa (CRISA) and changes to Regulation 28 of the Pension Funds Act which have increased awareness of incorporating ESG factors into fund managers’ investment processes. Through their pension funds, individual South Africans can make a contribution to the country’s development,” he said.

Mergence Investment Managers
Mergence Investment Managers (Pty) Limited is a black-owned specialist fund manager founded in 2004 with R12 billion assets under management. Its clients are largely institutional and include parastatals, unions and pension funds.

Mergence has been a forerunner in the area of impact investing in South Africa. In June 2010 it launched a suite of impact funds: the Mergence Low Carbon Equity Fund, the Mergence High Impact Debt Fund and the Mergence SRI Fund, all of which have performed above their benchmarks and shown that impact investing can marry ESG impact with targeted returns.

Mergence is a signatory to the UN Principles of Responsible Investment (UN PRI). www.mergence.co.za

Mergence High Impact Debt Fund
The fund factsheet is available on the website or on request.

GIIRS
The Global Impact Investing Rating System assesses the social and environmental impact and practices (but not the financial performance) of companies and funds using a methodology that has now been used by over 6000 companies and 50 funds.

The GIIRS recognises the positive impact generated by a fund and its investee companies and provides investors with rigorous, transparent, comprehensive and comparable ratings of a fund’s impact, grading the fund’s impacts on a scale of one to five stars and an overall score.

The GIIRS Fund Rating is comprised of a weighted average of the fund’s ‘Investment Roll-up’ score and its ‘Fund Manager Assessment’ score. To determine the investment roll-up, a weighted average of the scores of the investments in the fund’s portfolio and the total amount invested in each investment (company) are aggregated, which comprises of four impact categories: Governance; Workers; Community; and Environment.

The Fund Manager Assessment score is measured against three categories regarding a fund’s policies and practices in deploying and managing its capital: Targeted for Investment; the Investment Criteria; and Portfolio Management. giirs.org

Mergence Investment Managers

Mergence Investment Managers

Mergence Investment Managers is a forerunner in impact investing in South Africa.

More from Mergence Investment Managers