The latest news in investment offerings, financial products and other services relative to wealth advisors and their clients.

Praetura
Manchester-based venture capital investor and small business lender Praetura has launched a new venture capital trust, Praetura Growth VCT plc, expanding its suite of tax-efficient offerings to investors.

Praetura Growth VCT plc will primarily focus on investing in companies based in the North of England, enabling investors to diversify their portfolio with access to high growth businesses in innovation hubs outside London.

Shares in the VCT will be admitted to the London Stock Exchange, with Praetura seeking to raise an initial £10 million ($10.27 million) to invest in growth businesses with demonstrable traction and exceptional founders.

Praetura has opened Praetura Growth VCT plc to investors, alongside continuing to offer the Praetura EIS Growth Fund and Praetura Inheritance Tax Planning Service, which enable investors to back early-stage businesses and manage their potential inheritance tax liabilities respectively. The firm can also offer individual, non-professional investors access to a number of alternative asset classes, including high-growth regional tech companies for both EIS and VCT, and the market for asset-secured commercial loans to UK SMEs for its business relief (BR) service.

“The demand for alternative investments is growing significantly. Investors are looking for solutions to diversify their portfolio and deliver strong returns, especially at a time where inflation is continuing to rise and volatility in the stock market, which affects index funds,” Sam McArthur, partner at Praetura Investments, said.

Amundi
Amundi, the European asset manager and European ETF provider, has launched a new Euro Government Tilted Green Bond UCITS ETF., which enables investors to shift their core euro government bonds building block towards a responsible exposure.

The fund tracks the Bloomberg Euro Treasury Green Bond Tilted Index, providing exposure to euro investment grade government bonds with a higher proportion of sovereign green bonds so they make up at least 30 per cent of the index. This means that Amundi has classified the ETF under SFDR Article 8[3].

The Bloomberg Euro Treasury Green Bond Tilted Index aims to maintain the same risk profile, including duration and country allocation, as the parent index, with a low tracking error. It is well diversified with around 360 issues and 10 countries. This index profile allows the ETF to offer a broad exposure to a fixed income segment, particularly in demand in the current economic environment, while contributing to finance the energy transition.

“Clients have asked for innovative solutions combining sovereign bond investments with an ESG stance and we believe this new ETF is a great addition to our product range and a concrete investment tool to finance the transition to a low carbon economy,” Arnaud Llinas, head of ETF, indexing and smart beta at Amundi, said.

“The Bloomberg Euro Treasury Green Bond Tilted Index is a new index solution that we believe can be the standard for inclusion of ESG factors in treasuries. Ensuring we create indices that directly address concerns of the global investment community is always top of mind and so we are proud to license this new index to Amundi for their ETF," Dave Gedeon, CEO, Bloomberg Index Services Limited, said.