The Meloy Fund I, LP (the “Fund”), a new impact investment fund dedicated to helping coastal fishers transition to more sustainable practices, has launched with a first close of USD10 million.
The Fund targets USD20 million of debt and equity investment in support of the millions of small-scale fishers in Indonesia and the Philippines, who rely upon healthy coastal fisheries and marine ecosystems for their livelihoods. The ten-year Fund counts among its investors a diverse range of family offices, investment managers, and foundations. Rare, a global conservation organisation, is the Managing Member of the General Partner.
Lukas Walton, who will have a significant interest in the Meloy Fund via the Lukas Walton Fund of the Walton Family Foundation, said “I’m thrilled to invest in the Meloy Fund, and support its innovative model for deploying investment capital to the critical problems that coastal fisheries face in moving towards sustainability.”
This first close was accelerated to respond to robust interest from investors and a pressing pipeline of investment opportunities. A second and final close, including USD6 million anticipated from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) as anchor investor, is projected for fall, 2017.
The Meloy Fund deploys private capital to enterprises that can create value for fishing communities by improving upstream margins through supply chain efficiencies, waste-reduction, aggregation, and value-added processing, or providing fishing-related employment alternatives, such as ocean-based sustainable aquaculture.
Dale Galvin, Managing Director of Rare’s Sustainable Markets group and Manager of the General Partner, says: “The innovation of the Meloy Fund is to recognise the latent opportunity for value creation in the undervalued coastal fisheries sector, and link the resulting investments with the necessary community engagement and fisheries management provided by Rare, which ensures long-term sustainability.”
The Fund has a detailed impact monitoring strategy, projecting improvement in the lives of 100,000 fishers and their household members, while placing 1.2 million hectares of coastal habitats, including coral reefs, seagrass beds, and mangroves, under improved management.
