Investment trust insider talks to Foresight’s Bernard Fairman – James Carthew: Investors, UK show lack of energy foresight
Last week I talked to Bernard Fairman, one of the two co-founders of fund manager Foresight Group (FSG). With two renewable energy funds – Foresight Solar Fund (FSFL) and JLEN Environmental Assets (JLEN) – and the newly launched Foresight Sustainable Forestry (FSF) in its stable, Foresight is growing in importance within the investment companies industry. The funds are clearly of a type – ticking the ‘E’ in the ESG box.
To give you a potted history, Foresight has been around for 35 years. It launched its first retail fund – Foresight Technology VCT (which became Foresight VCT) – in 1997. It got into investing in environmental projects in 2007 and launched its first investment company in 2013. The management team for JLEN joined the group in 2019. Finally, in 2021 the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and now has about £8.4bn of assets under management, and offices across Europe and Australia.
Fairman’s early career was at 3i Ventures. In 1984, he and Foresight co-founder Peter English were backed by Robert Fleming to launch Fleming Ventures, a £20m fund focused on unlisted companies in the burgeoning microelectronics industry. The fund was successful, investing in Gemalto which was eventually bought out by Thales for €4.8bn, for example.
The diversification into solar power, which has since transformed Foresight’s business, was born out of a realisation, in 2004/05, that investors were looking for income from hard assets. They also anticipated the rapid fall in the cost of solar modules that would eventually make it competitive with other forms of generation.
Foresight’s growth has largely been organic. The acquisition of JLEN’s management team was unusual, therefore, but they could see that it was a good fit. However, after floating the business last year, acquisitions are more likely. Fairman’s ambition is to… read more here