UK active funds outsprint passive rivals amid market flux September 7, 2021 Active fund managers outperformed index trackers for nine out of the last ten months, as British investors put their faith in a human touch to navigate volatile markets and ever-popular ESG investments. UK equity funds managed by stock pickers saw inflows rise to £1.3bn in August, staving off the threat of passive trackers, who raked [...]
Foresight targets £200m sustainable forestry company IPO September 6, 2021 London-listed sustainable investment manager Foresight has announced it is branching out with an IPO of a new fund that will invest solely in UK forestry assets. Incorporated only a week ago, Foresight Sustainable Forestry Company will list on London’s main market with a fundraising target of up to £200m, at a price of 100 pence [...]
Dozens of UK’s biggest investment houses fall short of new ESG standard September 6, 2021 Some of the UK’s biggest names in investment have failed to meet a new ESG standard for investing for savers and pensioners, including Schroders, Morgan Stanley and Rothschild. In a new list published by The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) today, asset managers, pension schemes and insurers who successfully met a revised UK stewardship code were [...]
Housebuilder Vistry ties bosses pay to carbon cutting efforts September 3, 2021 Housebuilder Vistry has confirmed it will link its executives pay to sustainability targets from next year onwards, amid the UK’s push for net zero. The new practice appears a tangible effort to make the carbon-heavy construction and housebuilding sector more sustainable, ahead of the UN’s flagship climate conference COP26 in November. While bosses have been [...]
Benchmarking has become circular August 31, 2021 | City Talk Time and again throughout my career I have ranted about the nonsense of benchmarking in all its forms. By now I have given up on the hope that business and investing will ever leave the practice behind, so I don’t expect this post to change anything except to make me feel better. I spoke recently [...]
BDO: A third of companies risk losing business if they ignore the rise of ESG August 31, 2021 As environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures climb higher on both the consumer and investor agenda, companies will begin to lose business if they fail to get on board, new data has found. Almost a third of mid-market companies have admitted they face a “high” or “very high” risk of losing out on business if [...]
DWS rejects greenwashing allegations after probes launched in US and Germany August 27, 2021 German asset manager DWS has rebuffed claims that it misled clients by overstating its sustainable investing activities, after the news of probes by US and German regulators into the allegations sent shares plummeting. Shares in the €859bn group plunged by as much as 14.2 per cent yesterday, after reports emerged that the German regulator BaFin [...]
Impact investing is increasingly a buzzword in the City as millennial investors take over August 24, 2021 Impact investing, the strategy to make financial profits but create a long-standing, positive impact on our world, in the process, is becoming increasingly ‘a thing’ in the City and other financial hubs around the world. Many investors are hyper-aware of what is happening around them, with factors such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) making a [...]
ESG: full speed ahead, sat-nav still required August 24, 2021 | City Talk Sustainable investing based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors has become central to how we invest. Investors are demanding more from their asset managers: they want to invest based on their values and they are demanding more accountability from companies about addressing changing societal issues. Indeed, the Index Industry Association (IIA)’s most current latest [...]
ESG investing now mainstream, but who’s holding ‘greenwashed’ portfolios to account? August 24, 2021 Environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns are rising up the agenda of investors, who are increasingly more attentive to the impact of their investments. Beyond financial performance, investors are looking at their portfolios in relation to ESG factors, but how can they assess the ESG credentials of companies and funds when the data is scattered [...]