Podcast
The New Private Markets Podcast
Hosted by PEI Group · EN
The New Private Markets Podcast focuses exclusively on sustainability issues in private equity, venture capital, private debt, real estate and infrastructure. Join the editorial team behind New Private Markets as they pick through the sustainability trends shaping these asset classes, from ESG to impact and beyond, with help from industry insiders. Visit newprivatemarkets.com for more.
29episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
How LPs should manage a private markets impact programme amid slower DPI
Mar 200:17:40Tap to summarizeHow does a distribution drought affect LPs and how should they react? In this episode, we speak to Tom Mitchell, partner in the foundation and endowments practice and head of sustainable and impact solutions at Cambridge Associates. Cambridge Associates has been advising institutions on their investments since 1973. Mitchell has been with the firm since 2007 and helped launch its sustainable and impact investing platform. This conversation was recorded at PEI Group's flagship private equity meeting, NEXUS, which took place in Orlando in late February. Mitchell was among the speaker lineup for NEXUS's New Private Markets Investor Forum, and in this conversation, he describes the LP experience amid a period of slow distributions and fast-moving news. He also describes where LPs with an impact mindset are focusing their energy and capital in 2026. Note: NEXUS will return in 2027 and is heading to Scottsdale, Arizona!
Transcribe →How auto-loans and farm credit can be regenerative
Dec 1500:15:48Tap to summarizeRegenerative economic models create value and expand markets, rather than undermine them, says Kat Taylor. Taylor is an investor and philanthropist, and alongside her husband Tom Steyer founded TomKat Foundation. She is also the co-founder of the Beneficial State Bank and co-founder of the TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation. Taylor was also one of the speakers at the New Private Markets Investor Summit in New York in November. That's where we recorded this episode of the podcast in which Taylor describes how innovative business models in everything from autoloans to farm credit can, in her words, "make a buck a better way" and show that markets can be recalibrated to be part of a regenenerative, rather than extractive, economy.
Transcribe →How the sustainability-linked loan market is evolving
Dec 900:21:31Tap to summarizeHaving shot to prominence in the early part of this decade, have sustainability-linked loans (or SLLs) become an enduring part of the private credit landscape? Or have they quietly gone out of fashion? In this special edition of the podcast, co-hosted with PEI Group affiliate publication Private Debt Investor, we seek to chart the rise of sustainability-linked loans and assess how they are being used today. To recap: these loans feature a margin ratchet whereby the borrower’s performance against certain sustainability targets can result in a lower interest rate in the case of outperformance, or an increase in the case of underperformance. To help us assess the situation, we enlisted Nishan Srinivasan, head of origination and partner at Ambienta Credit. Since its inception in 2007, Ambienta has invested in companies operating in the realms of environmental and resource efficiency. Srinivasan spent 22 years at Credit Suisse, latterly as global co-head of leverage finance origination. He joined Ambienta in 2023 to help launch its credit platform. In the early days of SLLs it was not uncommon to see ratchets of 5 basis points relating to sustainability goals that were easily achievable, says Srinivasan. “Typically this was, dare I say, window dressing,” he said. “Quite de minimis in the context of the cost of the loan”. Fast forward to today and the targets are more ambitious, the discounts more meaningful – as much as 40bps – and there is more frequently a margin uplift in the event of failure.
Transcribe →Optimism abounds among US sustainable investors
Nov 700:12:59Tap to summarizeTwo major talking points at this year's New Private Markets Investor Summit: North America were the transformative force of AI and the pressing need for liquidity in private markets portfolios. While neither of these topics are unique to impact or sustainable investing, they are of paramount importance and dominated discussions on stage and off. In this episode, Jennifer Kenning, founder and CEO of Align Impact who served as expert chair for day one of the event, joins New Private Markets' Toby Mitchenall and Michael Bowen for a 10-minute wrap-up of the event. Optimism, a common trait of sustainable investors, abounds. "In the political environment we are in today, and how much the space has shifted in the last 12 months, there is a misnomer out there at the moment that it is all negative," says Kenning, who goes on to delve into reasons why, particularly in the areas of liquidity and AI, there is much to be optimistic about.
Transcribe →What the UN pension fund likes to hear from GPs
Oct 2200:18:03Tap to summarizeWhen Kenza Himmi, the head of impact investing and partnerships at the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, attends a pitch meeting with a fund manager, she keeps an ear out for a few non-negotiable items. She wants to know the fund's intent and whether it is designed to direct capital to environmental and social solutions. She wants to know how the fund measures the impact of its investments. And, of course, she wants to know if a fund’s investments will create value over time. Some managers have impressed; others, not so much. In this episode, Himmi, who will be a panellist at the Investor Summit: North America in New York City on 5 November, takes us behind the scenes and tells us what she likes to hear from fund managers during pitch meetings.
Transcribe →Does more money mean more impact?
Sep 1600:18:50Tap to summarizeIs the field of impact investing growing in a healthy way, or is it being co-opted by firms for whom positive impact is secondary to asset gathering? In this episode of The New Private Markets Podcast, we explore this fundamental question with Jed Emerson, a true veteran of the impact field, an author of multiple books and papers on the topic, and until April of this year, the chief impact officer for US wealth management firm AlTi Tiedemann Global. He's also the founder of Blended Value Group and holds a number of advisory positions. The conversation was prompted by a lively online debate surrounding coverage of New Private Markets' Impact 50, in which Emerson had questioned the link between the dollar size of a fund and the size of its impact. You can read about the online exchange here, and you can read about the Impact 50 here. We also touch on the distinction between NPM's Impact 50 and Impact Assets' IA 50, a different resource for investors in the impact space with which Emerson has been involved for more than a decade.
Transcribe →Understanding impact's financial performance with Schroders
Jul 15, 202500:16:01Tap to summarizeFinancial performance is the key issue that will determine the viability of impact investing at scale in the long term. Given the relative youth of most impact funds, it is a topic still open to debate. Asset manager Schroders has been examining the performance of its impact investments. The UK-headquartered firm released a study in collaboration with Oxford University’s Business School earlier this year which examined impact’s performance in listed equities. It has now released further research focused on private equity. Read NPM's coverage of the findings here. The results are positive: private equity impact investments have outperformed the wider buyout and growth markets over the last decade. In this episode, we speak to Schroders' co-head of impact management Catherine Macaulay and head of sustainability and impact for PE Paul Lamacraft to get their perspective on the findings.
Transcribe →APG and Colesco on the rise of impact credit
May 30, 202500:21:23Tap to summarizeWhen it comes to impact, private credit is often considered to be lagging behind other private markets asset classes. There are, however, signs that this is changing. Debt funds to hold a final close raised a combined $5 billion in 2024, the second-highest total of any asset class behind private equity. Dutch institution APG Asset Management is one major LP to turn its attention to impact debt. The €616 billion fund recently moved into infrastructure debt with an impact focus and is considering buying impact credit assets in the US. APG was one of the cornerstone investors in sustainable lending debutant Colesco, which raised €800 million for a mid-market European lending strategy with “a mission to unite capital and purpose”, the firm announced earlier this year. The Dutch firm, established in 2023, is seeking to raise between €1 billion and €1.5 billion. At €800 million, it has already become the largest private debt impact fund of its kind. In this episode of The New Private Markets Podcast, we speak to Menno van den Elsaker, head of alternative credits at APG, and Colesco CIO Danny Vroegop to discuss the growth of the impact lending market, how LPs are approaching it, and where the opportunities for investors are.
Transcribe →Brookfield's Adomait on 'a fantastic time to invest'
May 14, 202500:24:02Tap to summarizeLearn more about the Impact Investor Global Summit in London here Don't be put off by political noise. Reduced competition and growing demand for energy has made investment in US renewable energy generation easier and more attractive, says Natalie Adomait, managing partner and chief operating officer in Brookfield's renewable power and transition group. Adomait is one of the speakers at the Impact Investor Global Summit on May 20th and 21st in London. In this pre-event special episode of The New Private Markets Podcast, we speak with her about the firm's two giant energy transition funds, interest in emerging markets, and how actions taken by the Trump administration have affected market dynamics. "For us, this is a fantastic time to invest," she said. "You see a little less competition from investors looking at these large developers that have strong track records, incumbent teams and ready-to-build projects. But there is less competition for them, despite the fact that the demand growth is actually increasing from where we saw it five to 10 years ago. It's easier [to transact], is the short answer, but the more interesting undertone is that it is actually more attractive." At our upcoming event, Adomait will be speaking on a panel on the economics of the energy transition alongside Anders Bendsen Spohr from Novo Holdings and Stephanie Bilo from ResponsAbility Investments. Marjoleine van der Peet from Collective Action will chair the discussion.
Transcribe →Summit preview special: What goes into a good impact strategy?
May 12, 202500:17:28Tap to summarizeHow do you create an impact strategy that passes muster with LPs? The question is on the agenda for both our upcoming Impact Investor Global Summit in London in May and for this special event preview episode of The New Private Markets Podcast. Ben Constable Maxwell is head of impact strategy at UK-based global investor M&G Investments. The organisation sits on both sides of the LP-GP relationship, managing its own impact strategies in private equity and private credit, as well as backing other GPs through fund of funds programmes. At out upcoming event, Constable Maxwell will be participating alongside representatives from the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, APG Global Private Equity, Portocolom and Golding Capital Partners, discussing what managers need to do to create a robust impact investment proposition. In this episode, he takes us on a whistle-stop tour from the high-level philosophical aspects of impact investing through to the more prosaic elements that GPs need to have in place. He also tells us how the headwinds blowing in the face of sustainable investment are reaffirming the resolve and commitment of investors, rather than undermining it.
Transcribe →