Australia’s sovereign wealth fund is looking to partner with top managers to find value in the rapidly-changing venture capital market but warned that the intense competition for assets makes closing deals difficult.

SWFs are long-term investors and will weather whatever storm is coming, says Majed Al Romaithi, chair of IFSWF and executive director of the strategy and planning department at ADIA, who also encouraged investors to consider risk in a more “sophisticated” way.

Speaking at the PRI in Person in Paris in a panel to highlight the role of finance in addressing social issues, Ghanaian James Kofi Annan, sold into slavery at the age of six, told his story.

Denmark's PKA pension fund is leading the way in investing in emerging markets in line with the SDGs. It targets 10 per cent of its $40 billion in alternative ESG investments and an increasing portion of that is invested in emerging markets via allocations to green bonds, infrastructure, microfinance, water sanitation and a specific SDG fund.