Gates, Dalio, Zuckerberg, U. California Team Up on Clean Energy

Bill Gates, leader, Breakthrough Energy CoalitionRay Dalio, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and 23 other ultra-wealthy individuals have joined the University of California (UC) in a clean energy investment coalition, according to the UC.

Bill Gates—Microsoft founder and famed philanthropist—led the group’s formation and is expected announce it in Paris at the opening of COP21, the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

UC is the sole institutional asset owner involved in the Breakthrough Energy Coalition. The nearly-$100 billion organization has committed $1 billion for “early stage and scale-up” clean energy investments over the next five years, UC said, plus $250 million for relevant ideas out of the university system.

Gates called California’s post-secondary network—“with its world leading campuses and labs”—an ideal partner for the group’s “ambitious” goals.

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“I hope even more governments and investors will join us.”

UC “produces the kinds of groundbreaking technologies that will help define a global energy future that is cheaper, more reliable, and does not contribute to climate change,” the Microsoft founder said in a release ahead of the Paris announcement.

This energy group is the second recent initiative between UC and Ratan Tata, coalition member and ex-chair of Indian conglomerate Tata Group. Last week, the “business legend” signed on to advise UC on international policy, including Asian and subcontinental investment opportunities.

The private sector will ultimately develop the breakthroughs needed for a zero-carbon energy future, Gates said, but the private sector alone cannot alone bankroll foundational research and development. That is where the coalition aims to come in. “I hope even more governments and investors will join us,” he concluded.

Founding Members: Breakthrough Energy Coalition

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries
John Arnold, Co-chair, Laura and John Arnold Foundation
Marc Benioff, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Salesforce.com
Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Board Chairman, Alwaleed Philanthropies
Richard Branson, Founder, Virgin Group United Kingdom
Ray Dalio, Founder, Bridgewater Associates
Aliko Dangote, Founder and Chief Executive, Dangote Group
John Doerr, General Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Bill Gates, Co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Reid Hoffman, Founder, LinkedIn
Chris Hohn, Founder, Children’s Investment Fund
Vinod Khosla, Founder, Khosla Ventures
Jack Ma, Executive Chairman, Alibaba Group
Patrice Motsepe, Founder and Executive Chairman, African Rainbow Minerals
Xavier Niel, Founder, Iliad Group France
Hasso Plattner, Co-founder and Chairman, SAP Germany
Julian Robertson, Founder and Chairman, Tiger Management
Neil Shen, Founding Managing Partner, Sequoia Capital China
Nat Simons & Laura Baxter-Simons, Co-founders, Prelude Ventures
Masayoshi Son, Founder, Chairman and CEO, SoftBank Group
George Soros, Chairman, Soros Fund Management
Tom Steyer, President, NextGen Climate
Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons
Meg Whitman, CEO, Hewlett Packard
Zhang Xin & Pan Shiyi, CEO, SOHO; chairman, SOHO
Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan, CEO Facebook; CEO, the Primary School
University of California, Office of the Chief Investment Officer

A separate project to reduce the carbon output of investment portfolios—the Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition (PDC)—is also set to announce new members at the COP21 conference in Paris this week.

Last week the PDC announced it had swelled its members to include Hermes Investment Management, Dutch asset manager MN Services, BNP Paribas Investment Partners, and French investors Humanis and Caisse des Dépôts. The coalition now covers more than $230 billion in assets under management, more than double its initial $100 billion target.

“We know enough about climate risk to know that, as a pension fund, it is our responsibility to act,” said Mats Andersson, CEO of Sweden’s AP4 and a co-founder of the PDC. “We have experience. We have scalable solutions. We now need to make what we are doing today, mainstream tomorrow. And the PDC reaching its target is clearly a sign that we are headed in that direction.”

Saker Nusseibeh, CEO of Hermes Investment Management, added that it was “crucial… that we create the right outcomes from our investment decisions—and the right outcomes on a 30-year time horizon are those that mitigate risk, including carbon risk.”

Ratan Tata, senior advisor, UC Office of the CIORatan Tata, the former chairman of Indian conglomerate Tata Group, is to take up a senior advisor role at the University of California’s (UC) investment office.

Tata, who starts his role on December 1, will advise on international policy, including Asian and Indian opportunities for UC’s $91 billion portfolio of retirement, endowment, and cash assets. CIO Jagdeep Bachher plans to invest up to $1 billion in Asian public and private markets in the next three years, according to a media statement.

“Ratan Tata is a business legend and inspiration,” Bachher said. “Given his wealth of experience and relationships in India and globally, the University of California will benefit immensely from his insights on the growth of global businesses as we enhance our Asian investments portfolio.”

Tata said it would be “a pleasure and an invigorating experience” to work with Bachher and his team as they consider investments in “innovative new technology startups and private companies in the US and Asia.”

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Tata stepped down as chair of the Tata Group in 2012 after more than 20 years in charge of the company. During that period, it grew revenues from $5 billion in 1991 to more than $100 billion in 2012. The group has subsidiaries in dozens of industries such as steel production, car manufacturing, hotels, and even asset management.

Tata currently sits on the board of engineering company Alcoa, and has advisory roles with Mitsubishi, JP Morgan Chase, Rolls Royce, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore. He also serves on the board of trustees of his alma mater Cornell University and the University of Southern California.

The appointment is the latest in a string of high-profile hires made by Bachher since he became CIO in April 2014. Rick Bookstaber—co-author of the Volcker Rule—joined as chief risk officer in June this year. Scott Chan, formerly of Sacramento County and Sam Kunz, ex-Chicago Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund, have both traded the CIO title for managing director jobs with UC in the past 12 months.

In December’s issue of Chief Investment Officer, managing editor Leanna Orr spends a day with the UC investment team—subscribe now for your copy.