Singapore’s central bank has appointed Munib Madni as the inaugural chief executive of its newly-established office for its blended finance initiative, Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership (FAST-P).
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Under his leadership, the office will facilitate the deployment of up to US$500 million of concessional funding that the Singapore government pledged last November at COP29, alongside capital from other partners, including governments, multilateral development banks and development finance institutions, as well as philanthropies.
Madni moved to Singapore from Australia in 2005 to join the investment management division of Morgan Stanley. He held several executive roles over his 13-year career at the American multinational investment bank, as managing director of emerging markets equities, chief investment officer for Asia and co-portfolio manager of active international allocation strategy.
After leaving Morgan Stanley Investment Management in 2018, he founded the purpose-driven fund management company Panarchy Partners, which he left in March, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)’s managing director Chia Der Jiun first announced the setting up of the FAST-P office with a dedicated management team at Temasek’s Ecosperity Week last month.
The initiative itself was launched in end-December 2023 to raise up to US$5 billion from public, private and philanthropic sources to accelerate the region’s clean energy transition.
One of the three FAST-P thematic funds, the Green Investment Partnership (GIP), which is managed by Pentagreen Capital, will be ready to commence capital deployment in the coming months, said Chia.
Pentagreen Capital has announced that it will target marginally bankable projects in renewable energy and storage, electric vehicle infrastructure, transport, as well as waste management sectors. The sustainable infrastructure debt financing entity established by HSBC and Temasek is seeking to deploy US$1 billion under GIP.
Last December, the Australian government approved a US$50 million investment into GIP. Dutch development bank FMO has also proposed a US$50 million commitment in March.
The two other FAST-P investment themes are the Industrial Transformation Infrastructure Debt Programme and the Energy Transition Acceleration Finance Partnership.
The former, which focuses on decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors and emerging low-carbon technologies, will be led by MAS and BlackRock.
The latter fund will invest in energy transition projects, including the early retirement of coal and grid modernisation. Last November, MAS said that it is in discussion with infrastructure finance platform Clifford Capital to manage this programme, but no updates have been given since.
Last year, blended finance deals dipped slightly from its record-high of 2023 to US$18.3 billion, according to global network Convergence. As the market faces headwinds from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cuts, Convergence chief executive Joan Larrea has said that support from Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, alond new donors, like the United Arab Emirates and Singapore, will be key.
