Kartesia makes impact investment to social services provider RCI Group

In December 2022, Kartesia provided a sustainability-linked financing facility to RCI Group, a UK services provider focused on improving outcomes for people across the UK with expertise in criminal and family justice, forensic healthcare, community mental health and data & technology. This was the second investment from Kartesia’s impact investing strategy and the first in the UK.

The new facility will support the continuing expansion of RCI and its acquisition of Prometheus Safe & Secure and Prometheus Complex Care, further extending its offering within mental health services, whilst also promoting agreed ESG measures that reinforce the Group’s already strong stance on maintaining and developing its social impact. As part of the terms set out in in the facility, RCI will benefit from more attractive financing conditions if they continue to meet certain KPIs agreed with Kartesia.

RCI Group is part of the portfolio of Literacy Capital, a closed-end investment company focused on investing in and supporting UK businesses and is the only investment fund of its type to have been set up with a charitable objective to donate 0.9% of net assets every year in cash to literacy charities in the UK.

We felt comfortable in offering this financing solution due to the efforts already in place by both sponsor and company to improve their overall impact, creating strong alignment with Kartesia’s impact strategy. This is key to the thesis of the strategy, working with management teams who already have a strong stance on ESG and with whom we feel comfortable setting challenging but achievable targets linked to our loans.

The financing agreement has also been vetted by our independent strategic partner CANDRIAM, an asset management firm with more than 25 years of sustainable and responsible investment experience and who have taken a crucial role in the analysis and structuring of ESG-related KPIs that were tailor-made for RCI. The fulfilment of these KPIs will be annually audited by Candriam whilst ClimatePartner, a third party specialist in climate action, will provide data and analysis on RCI’s carbon footprint position and areas of improvement.

We are confident that this sustainability-linked financing will help to drive an impact-focused agenda at sponsor and portfolio company level and, ultimately, generate strong returns for our investors and other stakeholders in the transaction. We look forward to working with Literacy and RCI in continuing to deliver an agenda with impactful outcomes.