Putting new capital to work on sight
Dr Andrew Cooper, our Chief Executive, on the first grants from the Vision Catalyst Fund and P1 Eye Health Accelerator Bond
By Dr Andrew Cooper
Something different
I joined the Vision Catalyst Fund (VCF) from the The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, a £100m trust set up to celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee which successfully implemented eye health programmes in 28 countries throughout the Commonwealth. Being part of this will always be one of the proudest achievements of my career. However, I and my colleagues were left wanting to achieve an even greater scale of impact. The programmes strategy for the VCF was inspired by this approach, with a mission to work differently at a systems level to support work that can be scaled either now or in the future.
The launch of the P1 Eye Health Accelerator Bond in December, while at its very start today, is another significant moment in our journey to generate new capital for eye health.
I could not be more excited to be discussing this Bond in my first blog post as interim CEO of the VCF. It is our first investment product to unlock new capital for eye health. If we stand any chance of meeting the $25 bn gap in eye health we would need to find new and different ways to raise capital. This was my reason for joining the VCF as well as convening new stakeholders from outside the sector. This simple product, with $3 million invested so far, represents a major step forward for us in our mission.
Seeing hope with an eye bond
In partnership with P1 Capital, the VCF has developed an Eye Health Accelerator Bond. The bond is a wonderfully straightforward financial product, enabling the investor to deploy at least 4% of their 8% return towards supporting eye health programmes delivered by leading non-for-profit organisations globally carefully selected by the VCF. The investor has an opportunity to reinvest the principal in another Eye Health Accelerator Bond to continue generating impact.
David and Molly (though the David and Molly Pyott Foundation) are our first investors enabling us to rapidly start deploying capital to catalytic eye health programmes. We are incredibly grateful for their generosity and belief in this endeavour. We, along with Molly and David are incredibly excited to welcome others into the fold.
Setting the first returns to work
Leveraging the investment returns from The David and Molly Pyott Foundation we will be able to open up our first grant programme to be delivered over the next five years. There will be two areas of focus. The first area is supporting programmes in East Africa focused on system change. This will be a proactive process and invitation only at this stage. The second stream will support a number of glasses and lens grant programmes in partnership with EssilorLuxottica. This is open to all existing and applying partners. As more funds are invested in the Eye Health Accelerator Bond we will be able to offer greater numbers and size of grants. Details will be released on the VCF website in the second quarter of 2023.
Come along for the journey
We recognise it will take a huge amount of investment to generate the capital required to tackle the scale of the vision crisis. We want to build a community of potential investors to participate in the P1 Eye Health Accelerator Bond. The opportunity to engage investors who are new to impact investing or have not previously considered eye health in their impact strategy is exciting. Beyond this, we want to speak to other financial organisations who want to join forces to build donations to eye health into their existing products.
About P1 Capital
P1 Capital is a boutique asset management business who specialise in funding investment opportunities, secured via legal charges on UK property and commercial assets. P1 believes in simplicity, conducting transactions using clear and concise language and with honesty and integrity at the heart of our business. The dedicated team have a collective 150 years’ experience in property and finance, having invested throughout numerous property cycles and using their extensive knowledge of the wider property market. P1 offers a straightforward approach to delivering strong investment opportunities that are primarily financed with capital from institutions and high net-worth investors looking for strong income and capital growth. The business invests responsibly in UK regional real estate, adopting a disciplined approach to risk management, with an emphasis on preserving capital and delivering strong, risk-adjusted returns.