Institutional Investor (March 12)
“Sixty-eight percent of U.S. institutional investors do not use ESG in their portfolios.” They’ve been abandoning ESG as it “has become politicized, leading to state legislation banning the practice, lawsuits, and reputation concerns.” Elsewhere, in contrast, ESG investment is “forging ahead”. A recent global survey of 310 institutional investors, showed that “94 percent of European respondents have incorporated ESG into their investment process…. Within Asia, that portion is 86 percent.”
Tags: Banning, ESG, Global, Institutional investors, Investment, Lawsuits, Legislation, Politicized, Portfolios, Reputation, Survey Europe, U.S.
Investment & Pensions Europe (December 23)
“After seeming to hit a wall last week, negotiations” at COP15 ultimately “yielded an agreement on biodiversity – in a move that some hope will make it easier for the finance sector to address nature-related risks to their portfolios.” Similar to the breakthrough Paris Agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework “lays down a plan for dealing with the ecological crisis over coming years,” codifying a “commitment to ‘take action’ to conserve 30% of land, sea and freshwater sources by the end of the decade – known as the ‘30×30’ pledge.”
Tags: Biodiversity, Breakthrough, Commitment, COP15, Ecological crisis, Finance, Freshwater, Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Land, Nature, Negotiations, Paris Agreement, Portfolios, Risks, Sea, Take action
Financial Times (May 28)
ExxonMobil’s annual general meeting should be “a wake-up call for other executives with a bunker mentality.” Engine No 1, an obscure hedge fund, got shareholders to elect two directors by focusing on economics, not ethics, arguing that “Exxon has been so slow to recognize the need for a transition away from fossil fuel that its revenues will crumble, destroying investor capital.” Today’s activists “are not just trying to save the world; they are also trying to save their own portfolios in a world where regulators are enforcing green standards.”
Tags: Activists, AGM, Bunker mentality, Capital, Directors, Economics, Engine No 1, Ethics, ExxonMobil, Fossil fuel, Hedge-fund, Investor, Portfolios, Revenues, Shareholders, Transition, Wake-up
Institutional Investor (August 14)
“There are about 5,300 public pension funds in the U.S. today, overseeing some $4 trillion in assets. The 25 largest account for more than half the total. The rest of the market is highly fragmented, with thousands of public pension portfolios managed independently and locally. Fragmentation results in less efficient portfolios and higher operating costs…. There must be a better way.”
Tags: Assets, Costs, Efficient, Fragmented, Pension funds, Portfolios, Public, U.S.
Financial Times (December 2)
“Investors are becoming increasingly concerned about how climate risks will impact their portfolios.” TCI, one activist hedge fund, “has warned Airbus, Moody’s, Charter Communications and other companies to improve their pollution disclosure or it will vote against their directors and called for asset owners to fire fund managers that did not insist on climate transparency.”
Tags: Activist, Airbus, Asset owners, Charter, Climate risks, Directors, Disclosure, Fund managers, Hedge-fund, Impact, Investors, Moody's, Pollution, Portfolios, TCI, Vote
MarketWatch (December 28)
“The market’s post-Christmas climb appeared to come from nowhere in holiday-thinned trading, leading some to point the finger at pension funds who need to tweak their portfolios before the end of every month and every quarter. Pension funds need periodic readjustment as outperformance or underperformance in one corner of the pension fund’s assets can put its allocation out-of-kilter with its target weighting.”
Tags: Allocation, Christmas, Climb, Market, Pension funds, Portfolios, Readjustment, Target weighting, Thin trading, Tweak
South China Morning Post (May 21)
“The direction is clear, and the pace is picking up. For investors around the world, the biggest mistake would be to ignore China’s markets and their enormous potential now.” As China’s capital markets continue opening up, “investors—be they European hedge funds, pension funds in Australia, sovereign wealth funds from Asia, or ordinary savers around the world—will need to look at what might be a once-in-a-generation opportunity.” The June 1 inclusion of 200 of the mainland’s large-cap companies into the MSCI alone might “prompt well over half a trillion US dollars to pour into Chinese stocks in the next five to 10 years, as institutional investors adjust index-linked portfolios to MSCI’s change.”
Tags: Capital, China, Direction, Hedge funds, Index, Institutional investors, Investors, Large-cap, Mainland, Markets, MSCI, Pension, Portfolios, Sovereign wealth, Stocks
Institutional Investor (October 21)
“Negative interest rates are nothing new in Europe, where some central banks have effectively been charging depositors since 2014. But if rates stay below zero much longer, the region’s banks and institutional investors may have to rethink their portfolios to keep afloat.”
Tags: Banks, Central banks, Depositors, Europe, Institutional investors, Negative interest, Portfolios, Rates
