Gardant Re-Credit è il FIA mobiliare e di credito di tipo riservato promosso da Gardant Investor SGR.
Gardant Re-Credit ha un focus su investimenti in crediti e single name UTP «secured» assistiti da garanzie immobiliari; e, in maniera ridotta, acquisizione e valorizzazione di progetti real estate distressed, nonché, erogazione di crediti single name con la presenza di garanzie immobiliari.
La strategia di investimento di Gardant Re-Credit persegue un impatto positivo diretto sull’economia reale, andando ad incidere direttamente sulle aziende con le quali si avviano processi di ristrutturazione, curando il rispetto dei seguenti principi ESG monitorabili (Art. 8):
- Uguaglianza nel trattamento dei dipendenti, equo sistema di retribuzione e pari opportunità per tutti i dipendenti a prescindere dal genere ed età anagrafica;
- Sviluppo, valorizzazione e aggiornamento delle competenze professionali tramite piani di formazione per tutte le categorie di dipendenti;
- Salute e la sicurezza dei lavoratori
Inoltre, tutte le strategie di gestione del credito perseguono l’obiettivo di permettere al debitore di tornare a svolgere un ruolo economicamente attivo nella comunità e di rilanciare le imprese che vivono momenti di difficoltà. I suddetti accordi tra le parti prevedono la modifica delle condizioni contrattuali a favore del debitore a condizione che vengano da quest’ultimo raggiunti specifici target ESG, concordati tra le parti e vincolanti per le stesse. Oltre agli obiettivi «diretti» in linea con la qualifica di articolo 8, il Fondo agirà sempre con l’obiettivo di risanare ed efficientare gli immobili oggetto di garanzia dei propri crediti
Il Fondo ha un target di raccolta di 200 milioni di euro.
Sustainability-related disclosures
a) Summary
The Gardant RE-Credit Fund (the “Fund”) is classified as a financial product that, under Article 8 of Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 (also known as “SFDR”), promotes social characteristics in line with the most relevant international standards. In particular, the Fund aims to ensure economic and social rights, respect for human rights in business activities and relationships, and to promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth, along with productive and dignified employment.
Specifically, the social characteristics promoted by the product include:
- equality in employee treatment, a fair compensation system, and equal opportunities for all employees regardless of gender and age. This ensures that the level of remuneration by gender and the composition of the personnel are at least equal to the debtor’s company industry average and such to progressively reduce any identified gap.
- development, enhancement, and updating of professional skills through training plans for all categories of employees. The goal is to ensure equal growth opportunities, facilitate skill acquisition and lifelong learning, with an average of training hours delivered at least equal to the debtor’s company industry average, and a progressive increase in this average.
- health and safety of workers, ensuring an injury rate lower than the debtor’s company industry average.
To pursue these social characteristics, the Fund promotes the definition of restructuring or debt recovery plans for indebted companies and out-of-court agreements that focus on the social characteristics promoted by the Fund. Moreover, all credit management strategies aim to enable the debtor to re-obtain an economically active role in the community. The agreements between the parties involve modifying contractual conditions in favor of the debtor, provided the debtor achieves specific ESG targets agreed upon and binding for both parties. The qualitative and quantitative targets of the agreements may relate to the level of health and safety at work, gender pay gap, support for equality and inclusion, and qualifying training.
b) No sustainable investment objective
This financial product promotes social characteristics, but its objective does not include sustainable investment.
c) Environmental or social characteristics of the financial product
The social characteristics promoted by the RE-Credit Fund include:
- equality in employee treatment, fair compensation systems, and equal opportunities for all employees, ensuring that gender-based pay and workforce composition are at least industry average and progressively reducing any identified gaps.
- development, enhancement, and updating of professional skills through training plans for all employee categories, ensuring equal growth opportunities and facilitating skill acquisition and lifelong learning.
- worker’s health and safety, ensuring an injury rate below the debtor’s company industry average
d) Investment strategy
d) Investment strategy
The Fund invests its assets in: (A) credits, mainly in good standing or classified as “unlikely-to-pay,” and, residually, belonging to other categories of deteriorated credits; (B) medium and long-term financing provided by the Company; (C) real estate subject to guarantees related to the assets referred to in letters (A) and (B) above; (D) movable instruments of any nature conferring economic rights related to the assets under (A), (B), and (C), and/or to the entities to which these assets refer. The Company has integrated ESG analysis into the Fund’s investment process. ESG risk is assessed at both Fund and individual investment levels, in both the pre-investment and monitoring phases, through a qualitative indicator determined based on the following elements:
- Two ESG Due Diligence processes aimed at identifying, from the portfolio acquisition phase, virtuous companies in relation to ESG criteria, through the evaluation of specific KPIs.
- ESG safeguards as the subject of binding contractual clauses for the counterparty, also associated with achieving the Fund’s target objectives.
Sustainability risk analysis has also been incorporated into the investment process through the involvement of the Risk Management function, which, within its framework, considers sustainability risks. Both during the due diligence phase and after the investment, the governance policies and practices of the target company are assessed to ensure compliance with the Fund’s governance approach, including, for example, robust management structures, employee relations, staff remuneration, and compliance with tax obligations.
e) Proportion of investments
The percentage of financial product investments used to meet the promoted social characteristics is 25%.
f) Monitoring of environmental or social characteristics
In the contracts negotiated out of court and in restructuring contracts negotiated with the counterparty, specific clauses foreseeing the modification of contractual conditions in favor of the debtor will be included, on condition that specific ESG targets are achieved. These targets are agreed upon the parties, binding for them, and verified through periodic monitoring. The quantitative and qualitative targets of the agreements may concern the level of health and safety at work, gender pay gap, support for equality and inclusion, and training. Additionally, specific sustainability indicators have been identified for monitoring the social characteristics promoted by the Fund.
g) Methodologies
The sustainability indicators used to measure the social characteristics promoted by the product are:
- Average ratio between the total annual compensation of the highest-paid individual and the total median annual compensation of all employees (excluding the highest-paid individual);
- Annual decrease in the percentage difference in gender pay gap among debtor companies;
- Annual decrease in the ratio between the basic salary and the compensation of women compared to men for each category of employees, for significant debtor companies’ business locations;
- Percentage of individuals within the organization’s governance bodies belonging to the following diversity categories:
- Gender;
- Age group (<30 years, >30<50 years, >50 years);
- Other relevant diversity indicators (such as minorities or vulnerable categories).
- Percentage of employees by categories belonging to the following diversity categories:
- Gender;
- Age group (<30 years, >30<50 years, >50 years);
- Other relevant diversity indicators (such as minorities or vulnerable categories).
- Increase in the average annual number of hours of training received by employees, broken down by:
- Gender;
- Age;
- Employee category.
- Number and rate of workplace injuries for all employees;
- Number of occupational diseases for all employees;
- Average number of hours of qualified and specialized training provided to workers, including both general training and specific training on professional hazards, activities, or hazardous situations.
h) Data sources and processing
To meet each of the environmental or social characteristics promoted by the financial product, data is provided both by various counterparties and internal information systems of Gardant Investor SGR. Additionally, specific publicly available official databases, such as ISTAT, the European Institute for Gender Equality, and EUROSTAT, are used as sources to calculate sector averages. Extracting data directly from these official databases ensures the quality of the data a priori. The data requested from target companies align with GRI standards or the Principle Adverse Impacts (PAI) outlined in Regulation 2019/2088. As for the quality of this data, it will be ensured through a system of controls. The initial check involves validating and ensuring completeness of the information obtained from target companies. The responsibility for the reliability of the data lies with the target companies providing the data. In cases where Gardant Investor SGR processes this data for aggregations or weightings, Gardant itself will ensure data quality through an internal control process aimed at ensuring the integrity of the data. Whenever target companies use estimates in quantifying the data provided to Gardant Investor SGR, evidence of the estimation process will be requested.
i) Limitation of methodologies and data
The data and information underlying the monitoring of social characteristics are subject to the availability of the counterparty. This limitation in the potential retrieval of data does not affect how the social characteristics promoted by the Fund are met.
j) Due diligence
The Company has integrated ESG analysis into the investment process of the Fund. ESG Risk is assessed at both the Fund and individual investment levels, both in the pre-investment and monitoring phase, using a qualitative indicator based on ESG due diligence. The aim of the ESG due diligence is to identify, from the portfolio acquisition phase onwards, virtuous companies in relation to ESG criteria, through the evaluation of specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The ESG due diligence is also conducted with the objective of screening target companies on which to apply contractual clauses associated with achieving specific ESG target objectives. The preliminary screening allows for the identification of the most virtuous companies within the acquired portfolio based on sustainability KPIs. Gardant Investor SGR will conduct a consistency check of the Due Diligence with respect to the sustainability strategy of the Fund.
k) Engagement policies
One of Gardant Investor SGR’s investment strategy’s the binding elements is the a priori exclusion from the investable universe of:
- Companies operating in clear contrast to principles codified by international norms and conventions (e.g., in violation of the United Nations Global Principles);
- Companies operating in controversial sectors and activities belonging to specific exclusion lists, setting thresholds based on a company’s revenues over the previous four quarters. This negative ESG screening specifically refers to companies operating in the sector of controversial weapons (any threshold), coal (threshold of 20% of each company’s revenues over the previous four quarters), conventional weapons (30% of each company’s revenues over the previous four quarters), tobacco (20% of each company’s revenues over the previous four quarters), gambling (20% of each company’s revenues over the previous four quarters), and adult entertainment (any threshold);
- Government issuers under the United Nations sanctions regime, pursuant to Article 31 of the United Nations Charter.
Another binding element of the investment strategy is the ESG Due Diligence, carried out prior to the stipulation of the out-of-court agreement, in order to define sustainability Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will be included as contractual constraints. This allows the out-of-court agreement to be tailored based on the characteristics of the counterparty.
l) Designated reference benchmark
No benchmark index meeting the Fund’s promoted social characteristics has been identified.
