Since the emergence of “Modern Portfolio Theory” and the “Capital Asset Pricing Model” in the late 1960s, institutional investors have taken a quantitatively driven approach to portfolio construction, looking to create portfolio diversification and obtain better risk-adjusted returns by balancing their asset-class exposures. This journey has seen several important advancements in thinking about how to optimally achieve desired results.
Funds that want to take the total portfolio approach first need to get the total portfolio view. To do that they not only need data – and lots of it – but a rock-solid understanding of exactly how they’re going to use it.
Alliance lines up new ESG strategies
Third-party marketer 3PD has joined up with an ESG specialist multi-affiliate and distribution company based in in London, Haven Green.
3PD, which was launched last year by Rob Harrison and Steve Larkin, two experienced funds management marketers, has formed an alliance to represent Haven Green’s managers, which include pure-play ESG specialists, in Australia and New Zealand.
Haven Green has 13 sales professionals in the UK, Europe, Middle East and North America. It also acts as a consultant in the development of responsible investment policies to managers and funds.
Under the alliance, the UK-based firm will also represent 3PD’s managers in the northern hemisphere. They currently number four, since establishment in October 2020 – Fullgoal, offering Chinese equities, ValueQuest for Indian equities, Promethos for ‘climate resilient’ equities, and Marylebone for global balanced.
Rob Harrison, a co-founder of 3PD, alongside Steven Larkin, said that Haven Green’s managers and its other ESG efforts tended to have a bias towards infrastructure, private equity and other unlisted markets, which suited the Australian and NZ institutional investment appetite.
“We’re opening the door to managers and strategies which are not readily available here,” he said. The first manager to be represented through the alliance is Helios, an established PE manager investing in African impact opportunities which carries a ‘B Corp’ designation, Harrison said.
Haven Green was established this year by Dublin-based Paul Price, a 35-year industry veteran who was most recently the chief executive of Morgan Stanley Investment Management in Ireland. He previously held senior roles at other global firms including MFS, Lombard Odier and Bank of Ireland Asset Management. Most of the others on the team have worked together previously over long periods.
Price said: “Global investors are moving quickly to adopt best ESG practice with a focus on delivering sustainable and impact outcomes. Seeking out the investment managers that will succeed in this space is a massive challenge that Haven Green looks to solve through screening multiple candidate managers and refining to a small list blended in a multi-boutique approach.”
He said that having access to 3PD’s experienced team in one of the leading ESG investment markets was very attractive for his firm’s managers.
Harrison said that a key ingredient was Haven Green’s ability to keep abreast of innovative and disruptive investments internationally. The alliance allowed 3PD to bring those ideas to Australian and New Zealand investors, he said.
