Australia's "Green bank", the CEFC, continues to fall short of financial return targets, while making a fair fist of its mandate to rev up investment in the renewable energy sector.
The "core portfolio return" over the year to June 2018 was 4.44 per cent against a benchmark of 5.51 per cent to 6.51 per cent, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation disclosed in their 2018 annual report, released late last week.
Its Innovation Fund - still in its early days - produced a return of minus 14.7 per cent against a benchmark of 3.2 per cent.
On the other hand the CEFC more than trebled its total comprehensive income, or profit, for the financial year to A$102 million.
Established in the days of Julia Gillard's minority Labor government to keep the Greens on side, the CEFC has always prioritised its social mandate over its economic value as a financial institution.
Its mission, in short form, is to "act as a catalyst to increase investment in emissions reduction" around Australia.
Since getting up and running in mid 2013, CEFC has committed $6.6 billion in funding and co-invested alongside other financiers that have provided a further $12.3 billion in capital.
Over 2017/18, CEFC's financing flows were around $2.3 billion, a mild increase on the year before but a contrast to $837 million in funding over the 2015/16 year.
Almost half of its funding over the last year was for renewables, about 40 per cent was for energy efficiency upgrades and the balance was shared between transport and waste-related projects.
Steven Skala, the chair, described the financier's method as "to seek to crowd in private sector investment and engage capital markets to operate effectively in the private energy sector."
Skala in his commentary did not ponder CEFC's missing its return benchmarks, referring to its need "to meet the challenging objectives of increasing the flow of finance into the clean energy sector, while achieving a reasonable rate of return on the CEFC's capital."
He noted that "some $4.7 billion of the CEFC's original $10 billion in statutory appropriations remains to be invested."