Bridgepoint scouts head of sustainability from corporate giants

Bridgepoint Group has appointed Carole Brozyna, a veteran chief sustainability officer in the corporate world, as the firm’s first head of sustainability. Brozyna joins the firm after the departure of Bridgepoint’s head of ESG, James Holley, in May. Funds managed by Bridgepoint own PEI Media, the publisher of New Private Markets.

Reporting to chief investment officer Xavier Robert, Brozyna will be responsible for driving  sustainability and ESG work across Bridgepoint’s private equity division, a spokesperson for the firm told New Private Markets.

London- and Paris-based Brozyna “brings a wealth of practical experience”, the spokesperson said. She was chief sustainability officer for the consumer healthcare division of pharmaceutical conglomerate Sanofi between 2021 and 2022; advertising company JCDecaux’s group chief sustainability, CSR and quality officer between 2017 and 2021; and chief sustainability and CSR officer at Ikea Retail France.

Taking a line

Bridgepoint will draw on a sustainability-linked financing facility for its seventh flagship buyout fund, the firm’s executive chairman William Jackson announced at its half-year financial results call this week. Bridgepoint Europe VII launched in May 2021 with a €7 billion target. Jackson did not specify the size of the sustainability-linked financing facility or how much of its margin will be linked to Bridgepoint meeting sustainability KPIs.

Such a debt instrument is not new territory for Bridgepoint: two of the firm’s credit funds have ESG-linked subscription lines with KPIs related to diversity and inclusion in Bridgepoint Credit’s investment team and the number of ESG-linked loans in the funds’ portfolios, the firm told affiliate publication Private Debt Investor in a sponsored article last year (subscription or registration required).

The credit strategy also aims to include ESG-linked loan margin ratchets on all new primary deals, deputy managing partner Hamish Grant said to New Private Markets earlier this year. “The key thing we are trying to achieve with these ESG ratchets is a meaningful improvement on ESG KPIs by incentivising companies to do something that they otherwise would not necessarily have done,” Grant stated.

“We aim to be a responsible investor. Our approach is one of constant improvement in this area,” Jackson said in this week’s financial results call. “We invest in all stages of the ESG maturity curve with the intention of making a difference and making sure our portfolio companies make a difference.”