Last year, Kartesia launched the Kartesia Going Green initiative, in which we are committed to reduce our impact on the environment. To remain true to our goal, we undertook several actions to reduce waste when moving our Brussels offices in July 2020.

Kartesia aims to foster teamwork in a dynamic environment where we are committed to promote equality and diversity in areas such as recruitment, training and career development. We encourage diversity among our employees and ensure everyone receives the same fair and transparent treatment. Over the last few years, we also focused on giving young people the opportunity to learn and acquire competencies. Today, 5 of our 45 employees were previously interns (>10%).

At Kartesia we have made it very clear that ESG and CSR are at the heart of our philosophy, both at an investment and a corporate level. The last 12 months have seen one of the most troubling crises in a generation which has impacted companies of all kinds. Fortunately, it is with pleasure that we are able to bring you this latest Insight newsletter focusing on CSR, to which we have maintained our commitment despite the magnitude of the challenges raised by the coronavirus pandemic. 

At the start of this year, no one could have predicted the onset of COVID-19 and the unprecedented impact it would have by shutting down European economies practically overnight. Like many, Kartesia acted quickly once it became apparent what necessary societal action would be needed to protect the health and lives of the most vulnerable, as well as to provide required continuity of production and service by ourselves, and many of our portfolio companies, some of which became instrumental in providing resource to fight the pandemic.

Over the last few years, we have embedded ESG management into the core of our business and into our investment processes. Carefully tracking material indicators has helped us manage our investments more efficiently. We first built specific ESG tools for our debt investments and, as from 2018 and the recruitment of Sharif Anbar-Colas as Head of our CLO strategy, for our CLO investments. 

Kartesia is pleased to announce that it has reached an agreement with ADL Bionatur Solutions and BTC to acquire a 51% stake in ADL Biopharma (“ADL”), a Spanish biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and production of antibiotics and precision fermentation processes.