ESG

The cult of the benchmark is alive and well in global financial markets – and it’s probably doing more harm than good when it comes to ESG investing. ESG has leapt from the fringes of the financial services to widespread acceptance in just a handful of years. But markets tend to act as myopic, short-term…

Larry Fink wants to make capitalism a force for good. A new proxy advice initiative could be one step in the right direction. Stakeholder capitalism is not about politics,” writes BlackRock CEO Larry Fink in his 2022 letter to CEOs. in his  It is not a social or ideological agenda. It is not “woke.” It is…

Acacia Money, a fintech start-up which has embraced major consumer and market trends in financial services, this week takes its next big step through the launch of a ‘super solutions’ component of its offering. Armed with data from Chant West and aggregator Yodlee, the savings and wealth management platform launched in August will now incorporate…

Michael Lebbon wants to create carbon data that’s as ubiquitous as Uber. But he believes that too much consolidation in the still nascent industry risks creating a dangerous game of follow the leader. “I’ve never wanted to work in pure finance; it didn’t sit well with me,” says Michael Lebbon, CEO of carbon data startup…

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…

One clear message from this month’s COP26 climate meeting is that big investors – especially Australian investors – will not be waiting for politicians to lead the way with a response to the crisis. Institutional investors are now “moving to the point of implementation” of their sustainability strategies, according to global manager Ninety One, with…

Even the strong trend towards ESG investing, overlaid with heightened interest in climate-related strategies, has failed to halt the decline in funds management fees. The latest biennial study by global mandate search and research consultancy bfinance shows that fee compression has caught up with global ESG equities over the past five years, the average mandate…

Apex Group, the global administrator and fintech which last month took the reins at Australia’s Mainstream, has notched up another, more eclectic, milestone, mixing ESG with cricket. Apex, which has a strong West Indian connection through the domicile of its chief executive and founder, Peter Hughes, became the ‘Official Sustainability Partner’ for the West Indies…

The world’s largest state-owned funds have accelerated their allocations to renewables and lifted their targets for net-zero portfolios but, so far, their investments have been “miniscule”, according to the latest report by Global SWF. In a special edition of its monthly newsletter coinciding with this month’s COP26 meeting, the institutional investment research firm calculates that…

Global manager Ninety One has launched an index for sovereign bond investors which provides an independently verified assessment of alignment with the Paris Agreement on net zero. A feature of the index, the first of its kind, is that its inclusion of all major emerging markets, many of which are most impacted by both climate…

The New Zealand Superannuation Fund has taken out the PRI ‘Stewardship Initiative of the Year’ award for its campaign against Facebook, Alphabet and Twitter to monitor and delete hate speech. The award, handed down on October 20 at the organisation’s annual conference produced from London, followed the action taken by the NZ$59.8 billion, as of…

Events of the past two years have led to many changes. In the investment world, perhaps none is more apparent than a new level of activism by pension funds. Managers and investee companies beware. At a plenary session at last week’s PRI Digital Conference (October 18-21), ‘Fund Governance for the Next Generation’, representatives of three…