HSBC investment in Big Issue fund welcomed by AAA

Dec. 7, 2011 - PRLog -- Boston, MA, USA -- Alternative Asset Analysis (AAA), an advocate of alternative and ethical investments, is officially welcoming the news that Big Issue Invest's Social Enterprise Investment Fund has moved closer to its target.

The target for the social enterprise project, which is being offered and run by the UK-based homeless charity, Big Issue, is £10 million and it recently gained a further £4 million in investment, taking its running total to £8 million.

AAA reports that the latest investment has come from HSBC, with the rest of the £8 million coming from sources including the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, Deutsche Bank, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Ulster Community Investment Trust.

Big Issue intends to raise the remaining £2 million by March 2012 and will invest in a range of social enterprises to help them grow over the medium term. The projects will be selected for their potential to make a significant social impact and for their potential to generate returns for investors of more than 5 per cent.

The fund has already invested some £1.1 million in four separate enterprises and is on the way to providing a further £1.4 million in funding to three more projects.

“This kind of impact investing is the future as far as we are concerned,” stated AAA’s analysis partner, Anthony Johnson.

He continued, “An increasing number of investors are keen to ensure their cash is contributing to projects that are both environmentally and socially responsible, hence the popularity of alternative investments like forestry plantations, run by firms such as Greenwood Management in developing countries like Brazil.

“Individuals and institutional investors are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of social impact investing, both from an ethical perspective and a financial one,” concluded Johnson.

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The remit of Alternative Asset Analysis is to analyse and provide news on the global performance of a wide range of alternative asset classes including, but not restricted to, commodities, real estate, forestry, foreign exchange, hedge funds, private equity and venture capital.

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