ESG positioning in private infrastructure fundraising

Samuel Duncombe, Min Park, Monika Tarsalewska and Grzegorz Trojanowski

International Review of Financial Analysis, 2023, vol. 90, issue C

Abstract: We examine if environmental, social and governance (ESG) positioning by private equity infrastructure funds affects fundraising success. We use novel hand-collected data from a proprietary sample of fund marketing documents. By adapting methodologies from the extant literature on private equity fundraising, we directly address the fundraising event rather than the time between successor funds. Our results from private equity infrastructure fundraising events between 2006 and 2021 indicate that ESG positioning in fund marketing documents does not have a significant impact on fundraising success. This is an important finding as it suggests that investors do not respond to ESG-related claims in marketing materials at the fund level. However, there is some evidence of a weak positive relationship between ESG positioning and fundraising success that we observe in the earlier sample period that has dissipated in more recent years. This might be explained by firms trying to materialize value from “cheap-talk” due to first mover advantage.

Keywords: Private equity; Infrastructure investment; Fundraising; ESG (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 G11 G20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521923004404
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finana:v:90:y:2023:i:c:s1057521923004404

DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2023.102924

Access Statistics for this article

International Review of Financial Analysis is currently edited by B.M. Lucey

More articles in International Review of Financial Analysis from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().