Capital Raising Target of Social Impact Bonds Met in One Month
7 June 2017 at 8:41 am
Funding for Australia’s first social impact bond for mental health and Queensland’s first social benefit bond uniting children in out-of-home care with their families has reached its target one month after its launch.
Social Ventures Australia (SVA) announced on Tuesday they have raised $7 million to go to the Resolve Social Benefit Bond and $6 million towards the Newpin Queensland Social Benefit Bond.
SVA director of impact investing Elyse Sainty said they were extremely pleased with the responses they had had from investors.
“We are thrilled with the interest this social benefit bond has generated among the investor community, demonstrating the strong demand for investment options targeting both financial and social returns,” Sainty said.
The Resolve Program is a community-based mental health program which aims to reduce the amount of time participants spend in hospital.
Over the seven-year life of the bond, the Resolve Program aims to support approximately 530 people who suffer complex mental health issues and have a history of frequent and long-term hospitalisation.
The bond will offer investor returns linked to government savings generated through a reduction in participants’ consumption of government-funded health and other services.
SVA said the investors ranged from high net worth individuals and foundations to institutional investors such as NGS Super and Grosvenor Pirie Super.
NGS Super CEO Anthony Rodwell-Ball said the social benefit bond had the potential for attractive returns.
“We’re delighted to not only deliver the prospect of good returns to our members while also investing in the mental wellbeing of Australians,” Rodwell-Ball said.
NGS Super, along with QIC and HESTA, also invested in The Newpin Program in Queensland.
The Newpin Program aims to safely reunify children in out-of-home care with their families via therapeutic centre-based support.
It is anticipated that around 200 families with approximately 560 children, three quarters of them
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, will be referred to the Newpin Program over the course of five years with the first centre being built in Cairns in 2018.
The Queensland government will make payments, which will in turn be returned to investors, based on the incremental number of children successfully reunited with their families relative to a baseline target.
HESTA CEO Debby Blakey said: “Through impact investments like this, HESTA is creating lasting change for generations to come, as well as market-based returns for members. This investment closely aligns with the commitment we share with our members in health and community services to reconciliation and improving outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.”
