Institutional Investor (August 23)
“Proponents and critics of ESG claim it can change society. Both will be disappointed.” During the past five years, ESG investing has taken off. “By the end of 2022, global ESG funds had attracted more than $2.5 trillion in assets.” Regardless of this clout and “whether or not asset managers are ‘woke,’ ESG doesn’t hurt oil companies or provide capital for solutions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”
Tags: $2.5 trillion, Asset managers, Assets, Capital, Change, Climate change, Critics, Disappointed, ESG investing, Impacts, Oil companies, Proponents, Society, Woke
Investments and Pensions Europe (June 20)
“Four German states have recently revised their sustainable investment strategies, sticking to stricter ESG standards, a move that has caused shifts to the allocation of public pension assets worth close to €30bn.” The states (North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and Brandenburg) “switched to a Paris Aligned Benchmark (PAB), lining up with the EU taxonomy and United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to invest their assets.”
Tags: €30bn, Allocation, Assets, ESG standards, EU, Germany, PAB, Public pension, Revised, SDGs, Strategies, Stricter, Sustainable investment
Sydney Morning Herald (August 10)
“There are 68 trusts in China with about $4.3 trillion of assets – property loans, shares, bonds and commodities – under management, with property accounting for at least $500 billion of the total.” The National Audit Office has been instructed “to inspect the books of the country’s biggest trust firms.” This shows “the increasing concern of the Chinese authorities that the implosion of their property development sector could ignite a wider financial crisis.”
Tags: $4.3 trillion, 68 trusts, Assets, Authorities, Bonds, China, Commodities, Concern, Implosion, Loans, National Audit Office, Property, Shares
Investment Week (April 13)
“2021 was a stand-out year for environmental finance, as COP26, a new US administration, and rapid growth in industry collaboration drove climate action and commitments across businesses and the asset management industry.” Morningstar found that “the number of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with a climate-focused mandate grew to 860 at the end of last year… and assets in the space doubled to $408bn.”
Tags: 2021, Asset management, Assets, Businesses, Climate action, Collaboration, Commitments, COP26, Environmental finance, ETFs, Mandate, Morningstar, Mutual funds, Rapid growth, Stand-out, U.S.
Harvard Business Review (February 15)
“A uniform set of standards for measurement and reporting — just as we have for financial performance” is essential for communicating ESG performance. “Imagine a world where each company had to decide for itself how to measure say, revenues, or depreciate its assets…. That is the situation companies have been living in when it comes to ESG — but there is hope on the horizon.” The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) has emerged as the “forerunner… to offer a single source of truth of ESG reporting.”
Tags: Assets, Depreciate, ESG, Financial performance, ISSB, Measurement, Reporting, Revenues, Standards, Uniform
Reuters (January 28)
“A growing number of Chinese construction and decoration companies are writing off assets or issuing profit warnings as debt woes at China Evergrande Group and other property developers debilitate their suppliers.” Despite government measures “to ease developers’ liquidity stress and support the cooling economy, recent data suggests the problem will get worse.”
Tags: Assets, China, Companies, Construction, Debt, Evergrande, Government, Liquidity, Profit warnings, Property developers, Suppliers, Woes
Wall Street Journal (November 16)
Royal Dutch Shell will abandon its complicated dual British/Dutch structure, moving its headquarters to London. The move is being made to “help facilitate returns to shareholders and make it simpler to change up its portfolio of assets” as it transitions to low-carbon energy. The move should also improve the company’s “flexibility to buy back shares.”
Tags: Assets, Buy back, Dual structure, Energy, Flexibility, Headquarters, London, Low-carbon, Portfolio, Returns, Shareholders, Shell, Transitions
Financial Times (February 13)
“Investors poured a record $58bn into stock funds this week while slashing their cash holdings, in the latest sign of the fervor sweeping global financial markets…. Historically low interest rates and expectations for a big rebound this year in global economic growth have whet investors’ appetite for riskier assets,” but this is creating unease among some that “asset prices have become overextended.”
Tags: Assets, Cash holdings, Economic growth, Expectations, Fervor, Financial markets, Interest rates, Investors, Rebound, Riskier, Stock funds
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.
Reuters (November 29)
“European investors managing assets worth more than 1 trillion pounds ($1.28 trillion) are pressing top auditors to take urgent action on climate-related risks, warning that failure to do so could do more damage than the financial crisis.” The investors assert that the Big Four audit firms “are not giving enough weight to a potentially rapid transition towards a low-carbon future as governments implement the 2015 Paris Agreement to curb climate change.”
Tags: Assets, Auditors, Big Four, Climate change, Damage, Europe, Financial Crisis, Investors, Low-carbon future, Paris Agreement, Risks
