Invest
Alquity rebrands and launches an emerging markets fund
Last Thursday saw the launch of a new brand for Alquity Investment Management and their emerging markets fund, the Future World Fund. The location was the cool white interior of the Ice Tank in Covent Garden.
Alquity was one of the first funds we featured in Blue & Green Tomorrow back in March 2011. We instantly liked them because of their clear conviction that the pursuit of profit should be matched by putting something back.
Alquity’s charismatic CEO, Paul Robinson, has spent 20 years building businesses, mainly in the financial services and fund management sector. He also helped create Global Ethics, an ethical goods company, where 100% of the profit is given to charitable causes, better known under the One Foundation brand, made famous by Brad Pitt at Live8.
Paul’s journey in conscious capitalism started within a trip to Malawi where he participated in an impromptu football game with the local children. When they had to leave the children were most upset, not that the game was ending, but that they may take the football away. He notes that it was striking that such a small a thing, a football, could “be so valuable and out of reach”.
We’ll publish Paul’s inspirational speech from the launch separately but what is key is his commitment to capitalism as a potential force for good. But our current model of capitalism, Paul asserts, is broken. Capitalism has gone “rogue“.
Alquity launched in 2010, the same year as Blue & Green Tomorrow, and has the aim of fixing capitalism. This proof of concept was an Africa fund and its success allowed for the launch of three more funds this year in Asia, the Indian Subcontinent and Latin America.
In 2010, they aimed to create a virtuous cycle between responsible investment, transforming lives and delivering attractive returns. They appear to have succeeded.
Thursday’s event marked the launch of the new brand and a new fund, bringing together Alquity’s expertise across the four areas. The fund recognises that growth in consumer demand across emerging economies.
