Hedge funds: Green trimmings
Impax Asset Management: Shorting the non-environmentalists
Climate Change Capital: Towards a carbon hedge fund
BioFinancial Corp: Creating new markets to trade in
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| Greenwald and Coleman: shorting pie in the sky |
Craig Greenwald and Matt Coleman started looking at the liquid side of investment in renewable energy two years ago. Coleman was working for a firm that was focusing on financing alternative energy projects and noticed that many of the large institutional investors were making a push into renewable energy. Most, though, were investing in private equity that covered the sector and there was little opportunity to get exposure to renewable energy through the public markets. "Back then we saw very few hedge funds offering opportunities to invest via the public markets, and most were certainly very small in size," says Greenwald.
The Clean Energy Fund launched in November 2006. It invests predominantly in listed companies around the world whose net income is 50% or more derived from alternative energy solutions. The five areas of focus are: large power, such as geothermal, hydroelectric and wind power; distributed power, such as solar, batteries and fuel cells; transportation, such as biofuels and hybrid electric systems; water technology, such as filtration, desalination or infrastructure build-out; and conservation, such as LED lighting, advanced metering or energy-efficient industrial motors.
