Saturday, April 24, 2021

Lego Billionaires Plan New Investment Targeting Plastic Waste

As we work toward the closed cycle circular economy....

From Bloomberg via the Financial Post:

The billionaire owners of Lego are set to shift more of their wealth into ventures that figure out how to reduce surplus plastic in environmentally friendly ways.

Kirkbi, which oversees about $20 billion in assets on behalf of the family behind toymaker Lego, is looking for at least one new plastic project to invest in this year. That’s after first testing the market in 2020 with its purchase of a stake in Quantafuel AS, a Norwegian company that transforms old plastic into energy.

In an interview, Chief Investment Officer Thomas Lau Schleicher singled out plastic waste as a key focus area for the fund. But it’s also looking at ideas such as “new technology for producing alternatives to plastic,” he said.

Kirkbi is chaired by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the grandson of Lego’s founder and one of Denmark’s richest men with a fortune of $7.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In recent years, he has handed more control of Kirkbi to his three children, Agnete Kirk Thinggaard, Sofie Kirk Kristiansen and Thomas Kirk Kristiansen, who have a personal fortune of about $7.1 billion each.

The Lego family fund is underscoring its commitment to fighting plastic waste with the creation of a new portfolio for such investments, called Circular Plastic....

....MUCH MORE

Can Kirkbi-owned podiatry centers be far behind? 

Popular Mechanics, March 20, 2015:
Science Explains Why Stepping on a Lego Feels Like Death

An unstoppable force meeting an indestructable object means your foot hates you