ImpactAlpha Open

ImpactAlpha Open: Delivering outcomes in healthcare private equity + climate risk in muni markets

Dennis Price · February 4, 2025

Hi there, Agent of Impact! Welcome to ImpactAlpha Open.

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In this week’s Open:

  • Delivering outcomes in healthcare private equity
  • Equitable AI in the age of Trump
  • Agents of Impact Call: Brazil’s impact growth market
  • Spotlight: EVs and climate tech in India

Let’s dig in. – Dennis Price

Must-reads on ImpactAlpha

  • Contrasting approaches to private equity healthcare investing. Earlier this month Apollo Global Management and Leonard Green and Partners came under fire after a bipartisan investigation by the US Senate Budget Committee concluded that they prioritized “profits over patients” in two hospital chains in their portfolios of healthcare companies. Meanwhile, another set of healthcare investors are raising and deploying capital on a different model of value creation. Such an outcomes-based approach could mitigate such headline risks and position investors and portfolios for a regulatory push, Snehal Shah reports for ImpactAlpha. Check it out.
  • LA fires expose climate risk in muni markets. It wasn’t only houses. The string of blazes that tore through Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and other Los Angeles neighborhoods, destroyed recreation centers, street lights, water pumping stations and much more. The damage to public infrastructure in the city of Los Angeles topped $350 million in the first three days of the fire, according to a city report. The fires themselves have made paying for rebuilding municipal assets trickier, as climate risk threatens to upend the once-sleepy, $4 trillion municipal bond market, Louie Woodall reports for ImpactAlpha. Read more.
  • Reshaping passive investing. In December, banking regulators at the FDIC took aim at one of the industry’s biggest passive players: Vanguard. In a signed agreement between the two parties, various measures were outlined to ensure Vanguard remains a “truly” passive investor in FDIC-supervised banks. In contrast, competitor BlackRock is pushing back, requesting an extension until March to respond to regulatory pressures. For impact investors, “the knock-on effects could reshape how passive index funds engage with companies across industries and limit (for better or for worse) their influence on corporate behavior,” write Spectrum Impact’s Rehana Nathoo and the Cordes Foundation’s Eric Stephenson. Learn more.
  • Blending finance in the new political environment. In his first few days in office, President Donald Trump began the US’ withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and instituted a 90-day pause on foreign aid that is hitting everything from the removal of landmines to treatment for people with HIV in Africa. “If history is any guide, we can expect further rollback in climate action and a retreat from the multilateralism critical to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals,” warns Nnamdi Igbokwe of the blended finance network Convergence. “Amid this uncertainty, one tool stands out as uniquely resilient: blended finance,” Igbokwe writes in a guest post on ImpactAlpha. “As development aid constricts, the need for blended finance will only grow.” Hear her out.
  • AI for mission-based lending. To cut down on their underwriting time and increase loans to underserved businesses, Accessity, a community development financial institution formerly known as Accion San Diego, worked with Radiant Data to build a predictive credit risk model. “Once operationalized, these models have the potential to cut Accessity’s underwriting time in half,” write Mar Diteos Rendon and Nicole Jansma of the nonprofit small-business lender, and Sachi Shenoy of Radiant Data. See how.

Agents of Impact

🏃🏽‍♀️ On the move

The Week’s Podcasts

🎧 This Week in Impact: Harnessing AI for Impact

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: Responding to President Trump’s federal funding freeze; sound bites from Brazil from this week’s Agents of Impact Call; and how machine learning and AI can be harnessed for mission-based lending.

The Week’s Call

🇧🇷 Huge opportunities and trickle of capital make Brazil an impact growth market (video)

As global governments backtrack on climate and sustainable development commitments, Brazil sees an edge in the global competition for talent. Coming soon: a fast track visa and residency permit for entrepreneurs and investors who want to live in Brazil, work in its green ecosystem, or invest in its sustainable growth opportunities. “I think this sends a very clear message to the world,” said Gisele Vianna from Brazil’s Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Commerce. On ImpactAlpha’s Call No. 68, players in Brazil’s impact ecosystem explored the opportunities, and challenges, as Brazil finds itself in the global limelight.

The Week’s Deal Spotlight

🏍️ Investors in India chase EV opportunities to expand the range of vehicles

India’s already-toxic air becomes particularly dangerous in the northern cities during winter. Across most of Delhi, last week’s air quality index ranged from severe to hazardous. “We are at a crisis level,” said Nipun Sahni of private equity giant Apollo Global Management at a climate finance forum last month. “It’s time to be very, very impatient.” 

  • EV demand. Putting capital to work in the mobility transition is one of the most immediate ways private investors can address India’s air quality crisis, ImpactAlpha contributor Shefali Anand reports from Delhi. Some 70% of private climate finance invested between April and September last year went to companies making EVs and enabling EV adoption. Investors are encouraged by strong government policy incentives that are boosting demand: sales in all EV segments in India grew last year, with sales in the biggest segment, electric two-wheelers, growing by a third. Electric bus sales increased by nearly 40%.
  • Read the full post. Catch up on all of our dealflow reporting.

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