The team – which will be called Bridges Climate Transition Partners – will continue to manage the existing Climate Growth Partners fund, which has already made 11 investments. HSBC AM will remain a limited partner and maintain its existing capital commitment in the fund, and also intends to be an anchor investor in a successor fund, to be established and managed by Bridges in due course.

As part of the Bridges platform, the team will continue to back scalable, commercially proven European and North American technology companies, with a focus on areas like energy transition, sustainable manufacturing and climate resilience. The team will also benefit from the support of Bridges’ in-house sustainability, impact and value creation specialists.

Michele Giddens, CEO and Co-Founder of Bridges Fund Management, said:
“We’re thrilled to welcome Christophe, Mike and their outstanding team into the Bridges family. Their expertise and passion for solutions that are accelerating the transition to a more sustainable economy align perfectly with our mission. We firmly believe that investing in innovative climate technologies is one of the most powerful ways to achieve positive impact at scale, and we’re delighted to be spinning in this proven, expert team to spearhead our effort.”

Christophe Defert, Head of Bridges Climate Transition Partners, added:
“Climate technologies – powered by advances in AI and material science – are driving an energy and industrial transformation. We back exceptional founders whose unique and scalable businesses will be critical to the transition to a more sustainable and resilient economy.  Joining Bridges is a natural next step: it allows us to keep building on the strong foundations and networks we’ve developed over the last decade, with the support of HSBC. Bridges’ entrepreneurial spirit, impact expertise and specialist support will complement this perfectly. Together, we believe we can scale this platform to deliver great outcomes for our investors, communities, and the planet.”

Joanna Munro, CEO Alternatives at HSBC Asset Management, added:
“Christophe, Mike and team have built a strong platform with a differentiated approach and a solid foundation for growth. Our ongoing relationship with Bridges will support the scaling of this strategy, while continuing to serve the interests of existing investors.”

As of this new academic year (2025/26), the ICM Institute will be co-producing the Turner MIINT program alongside Wharton Impact, taking over the role previously performed by the Bridges Impact Foundation.

For more than a decade, Turner MIINT has provided graduate students from 35+ top programs across six countries with hands-on impact investing experience, culminating in a $50,000 investment in a student-selected early-stage impact venture. Turner MIINT now boasts a network of 5,500+ alumni, and has a strong record of launching careers in impact investing.

The Bridges Impact Foundation is a non-profit affiliate of Bridges Fund Management, the specialist sustainable and impact investor. It works to support the growth of the sustainable and impact investing market globally, through catalytic funding and strategic support.

Brian Trelstad, Partner & Board Member, Bridges Fund Management, said:
“The Bridges Impact Foundation’s support has played a vital role in helping to build Turner MIINT into the premier experiential educational program for impact investing in the world. It’s been so rewarding to see its growth over the last 14 years, which reflects the strong demand from the next generation of impact investors. We’re delighted that the ICM Institute is now able to take on the Foundation’s stewardship role: in tandem with Wharton Impact, they are perfectly positioned to build a talent pipeline for the industry for years to come.”
(Brian is also a Founding Board Member at Impact Capital Managers, and remains a Steering Committee Member of Turner MIINT)

So it’s significant that over the last two years, the Impact Management Project (IMP) has managed to bring together around 2,000 organisations from around the world – from giant wealth managers like BlackRock and UBS, to pension funds like PGGM, to foundations like Omidyar and Ford, to large corporates like Mars, to policy-makers, intermediaries and entrepreneurs – to reach a consensus on how we should analyse and articulate impact.

Michele also discusses the next phase of the project, which will aim to embed these shared fundamentals into sector-wide standards and benchmarks.

Read the blog post here.

Watch out for more developments from the IMP here.

Medwood, through its operating subsidiaries, provides administrative and management support services to a network of primary care and family medicine physician practices located in New York City, which collectively support more than 40,000 visits annually. The primary care and family medicine practices that Medwood services are providing low-cost, high-quality care within medically underserved communities.

Practice management for primary care physicians, particularly those in underserved neighborhoods, has been a key focus for the Bridges investment team within its broader ‘health and wellness’ impact theme – as these services allow physicians to concentrate on delivering better health outcomes and scaling their operations to support more patients.

Bridges has appointed Kerry McDonald as the new Chief Executive Officer. Kerry is a seasoned healthcare executive with experience operating management service organizations as well as various managed care plans throughout the United States.

Kerry McDonald, incoming Chief Executive Officer said: “This is an exciting time to be in healthcare. As real incentives become available to providers, it puts the care of patients squarely in the hands of physicians. I look forward to continuing to grow Medwood and supporting the underlying practices. Bridges is an experienced and aligned partner who should be a great asset during the next stage of the Company’s growth. Bridges’ industry expertise, track record of working alongside management teams in high-growth environments and clear orientation to further expansion in medically underserved communities were differentiators to myself and the Medwood team.”

Ed Niemczyk, Investment Director at Bridges, commented: “As value-based reimbursement continues to become increasingly prevalent at provider organizations, the need for centralized and efficient administrative management also continues to grow. Medwood enables primary care providers to focus on the clinical outcomes of the patient population while simultaneously helping them to achieve greater scale in the communities that they are serving. Bridges brings a strong history of healthcare investment and practice management experience to the Medwood investment and we look forward to working alongside Kerry McDonald and the entire team.”

This investment in Medwood builds on Bridges’ extensive experience of investing in the healthcare sector. Notable recent investments include the Hub pharmacy, a chain of community pharmacies that specialize in providing healthcare services in underserved areas; Alina Homecare, which provides high-quality home care to elderly and disabled patients; and Shaw Healthcare, the UK’s largest employee-owned care home operator.

***

In the press: 

PE Wire

PE Hub

The IA50 is an annual list of the world’s 50 leading impact investment fund managers, selected for their excellence in demonstrating positive social, environmental and financial impact. Six of this year’s IA50 (including Bridges) have now raised over $1bn since inception.

See the IA50 database here.

Within the portfolio, we have seen record levels of growth – and continued to deliver some powerful social and environmental impact. This report draws out some of these stories in more detail, but just to take a few headline figures from across the portfolio this year, our investments have:

• Delivered 1.3m hours of quality care
• Provided healthcare services to almost 40,000 people
• Helped over 2,600 children achieve better educational outcomes
• Averted more than 30,000 tonnes of carbon emissions
• Supported over 2,600 jobs

2017 has also seen a continued rise in the number of new entrants coming into sustainable and impact investing. This is a hugely exciting trend; and a much-needed one, given the scale of the problems we face. But it presents a challenge, too: as these new entrants join the field, all with their own goals, metrics and methodologies, how do we make sure that everyone thinks and talks about ‘impact’ in a broadly similar way? If we fail to get this right, there’s a real risk that expectations may become misaligned and different actors along the impact value chain may end up disappointed.

A key part of the answer, we believe, is the Impact Management Project: an industry-wide effort (facilitated by Bridges Impact+) to agree on some common fundamentals for how we talk about and manage impact. Our report this year includes a special section that introduces some of the key concepts emerging from the Impact Management Project, and explains how this emerging consensus is informing our own approach as an investor.

Read the report here:  (screen view)  (print view)

This is based on recent consensus between hundreds of global practitioners around five dimensions that help us understand the material effects (positive and negative) we have on people and planet.

Read the full post here.

To mature and develop, McKinsey argues that the sector needs to focus on the following four areas: professionalising the practice of impact investing, clarifying impact-measurement standards, supporting social enterprises and impact-oriented businesses, and improving marketing practices and product development.

The articles highlights Bridges’ role as an innovator in the sector, citing successes like The Gym Group.

Read the full article here.

More broadly, this year’s political turbulence has underlined quite how urgently we as a society need to find better ways to promote equality of opportunity; to support underserved regions; to improve educational outcomes for young people; to build a more sustainable health and social care system; and to reduce our environmental impact.

At Bridges, we have been thinking about these challenges and seeking out investable solutions for more than a decade. In this year’s Annual Impact Report, we explain how this approach has enabled us to identify a range of different strategies across our platform of funds – and we outline some of the impact we’ve been able to deliver as a result. For instance, through our investments:

• 3.3m care hours have been delivered to elderly and vulnerable people
• 2,500 tonnes of CO2 saved through renewable and green energy usage
  across our property portfolio
• 4,345 students have been enrolled in high-quality afterschool programs in the US
• Almost 1,600 previously unemployed people have been helped back into work
• Vulnerable children have spent 23,500 fewer days in care

We also show how this challenge-led focus has underpinned the new investments we’ve made in 2016.

Read the full report here:  (screen view)  (print view) 

The MIINT program is an initiative of Bridges IMPACT+, the advisory arm of specialist fund manager Bridges Ventures, and The Wharton Social Impact Initiative. Under the program, student-led investment teams from top business schools learn to source and conduct due diligence on impact investments, and then compete for the chance to win a $50,000 investment into their selected company.

At the MIINT final competition on March 22, student teams presented their recommendations to a panel of 10 judges comprising leaders in the impact investing and venture capital sectors.

Three MBA students, Cindy Ye, Jennifer Wittig, and Zoila Jennings, from the Kellogg School of Management attained the top honors, winning the Best Investment and Best Impact awards for their presentation of Jail Education Solutions (JES), an early stage social enterprise that provides educational content for inmates through tablet technology. The company aims to reduce recidivism and increase employment opportunities for inmates through enabling self-driven education. For Kellogg, winning means a potential $50,000 angel investment into JES. The primary program sponsor of the MIINT is Ron Moelis, CEO of L+M Development Partners. Moelis is passionate about impact investment and has been a strong supporter of the MIINT for the last two years. Other sponsors of the program are Apax Foundation, Liquidnet for Good, Mission Throttle, and Impact Engine.

Other winners included the Ross and Wharton MBA student team, who won the Runner-Up Best Investment award for their joint presentation on Raise, an online platform that allows underserved high school students to earn micro-scholarships for college. The student team at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah also won the Best Diligence award for their presentation on Bloc Power, a start-up that provides energy retrofit financing and installation in underserved neighborhoods.

“The final opportunities presented were selected from over 400 companies that students sourced at the beginning of the program. The student presentations showed strong diligence of the investment opportunities from both an impact and commercial perspective, and showcased the high caliber talent emerging from business schools into the field,” says Brian Trelstad, Partner at Bridges Ventures.

“Our goal is to provide the best experiential education available in the field of impact investment,” says Jacob Gray, Senior Director of the Wharton Social Impact Initiative. “I think the students were inspired by the opportunity to test their mettle against some of the smartest MBA students in the world.”

About Bridges IMPACT+
Bridges IMPACT + is the advisory arm of Bridges Ventures LLP (“Bridges Ventures”), a specialist fund manager dedicated to using an impact-driven investment approach to create superior returns for both investors and society at large. Bridges IMPACT + seeks to promote the growth of the sustainable and impact investment sector by offering practitioner-led advisory services based on Bridges Ventures’ 12 year experience of investing for financial returns and positive impact.

About Wharton Social Impact Initiative
Wharton Social Impact Initiative (WSII) is the institutional hub for social impact activities, information, and resources at Wharton. Established in 2009, WSII harnesses the knowledge and creativity of the Wharton community to investigate, create, and implement solutions to enduring social problems. It supports faculty, students, and alumni in the drive to use business knowledge and practices to enhance the greater good of the local community, the nation, and the world. For more information, visit socialimpact.wharton.upenn.edu.

The publication points out that when Bridges was launched in 2002, the idea of a private equity firm trying to “deliver a profit at the same time as making a social impact” met with a lot of scepticism – whereas today, “investors and dealmakers across all parts of the market are now taking social impact and sustainable investing more seriously.”

“It looks like Giddens was right all along,” Real Deals concludes. “Expect others in the asset class to start following the Bridges blueprint.”

Read the full 20 Most Influential 2016 list here (£)