The U2 voice asked Bush’s former Treasury Minister and former Goldman Sachs chief to help raise more than $ 5 billion for the Rise Fund reserved for environmental investments
The strange new couple in the fight against climate change is made up of two seemingly polar opposites: Hank Paulson, former Bush Treasury Secretary and former head of Goldman Sachs, the investment bank that is the icon of Wall Street, and Paul David Hewson, aka Bono.
Odd couple up to a certain point because Bono Vox, in addition to music, devotes a lot of time to philanthropy (he is mainly involved in the fight against poverty and disease in Africa) while Paulson, too, left his post of government 12 years ago after having Faced with the 2008 Wall Street crash triggered by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, he chose not to return to active finance, limiting himself to managing his philanthropic activities. But the U2 leader, convinced that neither government commitments nor philanthropic efforts are enough to combat environmental degeneration, has long been trying to create an environmental investment fund that must serve to combat global warming, but which is also capable of producing economic results and profits like any other type of investment. What has become possible today thanks to the great progress of many technologies, starting with those for batteries and the production of solar energy.
After helping the TPG fund raise more than $ 5 billion for the Rise Fund reserved for environmental impact investments, Bono asked Paulson to take the lead. Receiving, at the beginning, a clear refusal. The 74-year-old former minister, now devoted to philanthropy, did not want to return to the world of finance. But the courtship of Bono and TPG co-founder Jim Coulter has been prolonged and increasingly assiduous. Eventually Paulson gave in: he will return to Wall Street for the first time since 2006. “I had no intention of embarking on this adventure,” he commented. «Anyway, at my age I don’t think I’m running a start-up. I just want to make a difference ».
July 28, 2021 (change July 28, 2021 | 13:49)
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