BlackRock Impact Opportunities Fund Targets $1 Billion to Invest in Communities of Color Across the U.S. - Seite 2

To date, the fund has evaluated a robust pipeline of opportunities and completed three investments:

• In May 2022, the fund partnered with Eastwood Capital Partners, a Black-owned sponsor, and Retro Fitness to invest in the development of up to 70 fitness franchises in the Dallas, Houston, and Southeast Florida areas. The investment seeks to make affordable exercise, health and fitness more accessible to communities of color to help address disparities in social determinants of health. Moreover, most budget gyms in the U.S. fitness industry are demonstrating a robust revenue rebound from 2020 and early 2021 pandemic-lows as pandemic-related restrictions ease.¹

• In February 2022, the fund partnered with BRP Companies, a Black-owned and operated real estate firm with a majority-diverse employee base, to invest in Arboretum, a to-be-built, 292-unit, garden-style rental community located in Farmingville, New York, a multifamily rental constrained market on Long Island. BRP has hired several diverse-owned businesses as vendors on the project and Basis Investment Group, a Black and female-owned commercial real estate investment firm, is acting as the preferred equity investor. This investment enables BRP Companies to expand its business beyond its historical focus of developing urban housing and highlights its strong capabilities and longstanding track record, which includes being New York City’s third most active real estate developer in 2020.²

• In September 2021, the fund invested in Tricolor, a fintech company with a majority-diverse employee base that leverages proprietary AI-powered technology to sell and provide financing for high-quality, affordable used vehicles to underserved Latinx customers. The U.S. Latinx market is growing at 8.6 percent, faster than China or India, and is equivalent to the eighth largest economy in the world.³ Tricolor is headquartered in Dallas, Texas and operates 50 dealerships across Arizona, California, Nevada, and Texas. The company won the 2021 LendIt Fintech Industry Award for Excellence in Financial Inclusion, and in April became the first consumer auto finance issuer of a social bond. Tricolor is also certified by the U.S. Treasury Department as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). CDFIs are institutions focused on expanding economic opportunity in low-income communities by providing access to financial products and services.

Douglas McNeely, Head of BlackRock’s Strategic Client Coverage Group, commented, “BlackRock believes it is essential that we collaborate with our clients and the broader financial services industry to identify opportunities that drive real, long-lasting impact in the communities that we serve. Through this fund, we are harnessing the power of the BlackRock platform and the active partnership of our clients to identify strong investment opportunities that align with our clients’ and partners’ ethos.”