Founding Impax Environmental Markets manager to retire after more than 20 years

Bruce Jenkyn-Jones, one of Impax’s first employees, will leave the pioneering environmental equities trust in the hands of his long-time co-managers.

It is the end of an era at Impax Asset Management as one of its first employees announces plans to retire. 

Bruce Jenkyn-Jones (pictured above), who has managed the firm’s pioneering £779m Impax Environmental Markets (IEM ) investment trust since its launch in 2002, is set to retire in July next year. 

The trust will remain in the hands of Jon Forster, who has worked on the portfolio since 2004, and co-manager Fotis Chatzimichalakis, who has worked on the strategy for eight years.

The announcement of Jenkyn-Jones’ retirement comes at a slightly difficult moment for IEM, when performance has suffered both from its environmental and small-cap focus – in addition to not holding Tesla – in recent years. 

Annual results for 2024 released today, which also contained the update on portfolio management, captured another year of underperformance versus reference benchmarks. 

The trust, which counts activist Saba among its investors, holds a regular continuation vote every three years, with the next falling at its annual general meeting in May. 

Wider impact on Impax 

Jenkyn-Jones, who joined Impax one year after the sustainable investment business’s inception in 1999, will also step down as co-CIO of listed equities on 1 October. 

Charles French, who joined the business from Newton Investment Management in 2022, will then become the sole chief investment officer at the business, working alongside fixed income head Ross Pamphilon.

Jenkyn-Jones joined Impax from BT Alex Brown and has played a pivotal part in its growth over the last quarter of a century. 

When he arrived, the funds business had just under £20m in assets under management, run on a mandate from the International Finance Corporation. 

Together with Impax founder Ian Simm, Jenkyn-Jones established a listed equities business. This included producing the world’s first green taxonomies as part of the classification of environmental markets. 

As of 28 February 2025, Impax had £28.5bn of assets under management, making it one of the UK’s biggest sustainable investment managers. 

‘Bruce has been a huge contributor to the success of Impax for over 25 years,’ Simm said in a statement. 

‘We are fortunate that clients and colleagues will all continue to benefit from his deep experience and expertise for the next 15 months.’ 

The news comes during one of Impax’s toughest periods, with the firm planning to cut 30 roles following the loss of a £5.1bn mandate from St James’s Place.