Swiss-based RMF Investment Management has launched a fund of hedge funds to invest in environment-related industries and strategies. The RMF Environmental Opportunities Fund will invest in clean technology, renewable energy, carbon and emissions trading and in water resources and infrastructure. 

The fund is targeting institutional investors and has been funded with US$18.1 million proprietary capital and US$7 million from one of RMF’s multi-strategy products. It will initially invest in six underlying managers with strategies ranging from equity long/short to commodities and multi strategy offerings and grow to 10-15 managers. It is targeting annual returns of LIBOR + 8-10%.

“Environmental hedge funds offer great profit potential, but the challenge for us, initially, was to find enough liquid strategies with institutional-quality managers,” said Michelle McCloskey, head of the New Alternatives Group at RMF.

“When we started looking at the market over a year ago, only a handful of these hedge funds existed. Over the past year, liquidity in both the equities and futures markets has increased dramatically and we have seen a corresponding increase in the number of fund offerings in the sector. With over 35 hedge funds to choose from, we now are confident that the market is scalable and that the managers are here to stay.”