AXA Investment Managers is shutting down its fund focused on biodiversity due to a lack of investor interest. “We continue to believe in the theme, but from now on within a broader context,” the explanation said.
Around January 30, the AXA World Funds (WF) ACT Biodiversity fund will come to an end after a lifespan of less than four years. “The net asset value of the fund has declined to a level that can no longer be managed in a cost-efficient manner,” asset manager AXA IM reported. AXA IM will soon be fully integrated into BNP Paribas Asset Management. Assets under management are said to amount to less than 50 million euro.
“This decision is part of the regular evaluation of our fund offering,” BNP Paribas AM said in a statement to Investment Officer. “Within listed markets, this theme showed limited commercial success, as the investment universe remains too concentrated for many clients. They prefer a broader impact approach that can benefit from better diversification. We continue to believe in the biodiversity investment theme, which is included in several of our broader listed strategies.”
Ambitions not fulfilled
The fund, classified as Article 9 under the SFDR rules, was launched in April 2022. Through bottom-up stock selection, it invested in companies active in the protection of fauna and flora, land conservation, new water ecosystems, recycling, and sustainable materials. The ambition was “to generate a positive and measurable impact on the environment and to deliver long-term financial returns.”
“We believe that companies addressing their impact on the planet and contributing to the preservation and restoration of biodiversity will achieve stronger earnings growth and superior shareholder returns over the long term,” the explanation said at the time.
As of January 22, 2026, however, the fund showed a negative performance of 23 percent since launch. Notably, as recently as June 2025, AXA IM’s marketing department was still speaking of “growing investor demand for biodiversity strategies.”
Morningstar: biodiversity funds not very popular
The closure of the AXA fund appears to be illustrative of the broader segment of funds with biodiversity as a theme, according to an analysis by Morningstar. “Those funds have, without exception, proved largely unsuccessful in terms of attracting investor capital,” said analyst Ronald van Genderen.
Morningstar noted that of the 33 funds with biodiversity (or a variant) in their name, six have already been closed, and the AXA fund, despite being one of the larger ones, is now being added to that list.
Moreover, many other funds are under pressure because they are too small: the vast majority of funds have assets under management below 100 million euro, a benchmark for viability.
“Despite the limited success, five new biodiversity funds were launched in 2025,” Van Genderen noted. “Historically, such funds were mainly equity strategies, but in 2025 we saw a government bond fund (Arca), a corporate bond fund (Amundi), and a private equity fund.”