Blackstone asks CEOs to take ESG matters to their boards for the first time May 4, 2021 Investment group Blackstone has asked its top private equity staff to report environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters to their boards for the first time ever. Executives in companies controlled by the group’s private equity arm will up Blackstone’s sustainability, as investors are increasingly wary of the impacts companies have on the environment and workers, according [...]
The Evening Read: City veteran Gavin Rochussen on closing deals remotely April 29, 2021 In an exclusive interview, City A.M. sits down with Gavin Rochussen, the CEO of St. James’s-based Polar Capital, to talk all things asset management, how the pandemic has changed working practices, navigating acquisitions in lockdown and how culture is so important to success. You told me that Polar Capital is a boutique asset manager, but [...]
Will ESG turn Bitcoin into a digital ‘stranded asset’ or monetary MySpace? (Part II) April 13, 2021 | City Talk In this second instalment of a two-part piece, Ben Ashby, Derek Usher and Gerard Fox explain why environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors will undermine Bitcoin’s eye-catching rise, here focusing on the ‘S’ and ‘G’. We at Good Governance Capital (GGC) are enormously enthusiastic and supportive of innovation and competition in finance. As former mainstream [...]
Exclusive: The City will emerge strong from Brexit, says impact investment whizz April 8, 2021 One of the hottest trends within the City’s investment community lately has been impact investing; capital flowing into companies, entities and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact. To many institutional investors and pension funds, impact investments are increasingly becoming the standard so this type of investments is more [...]
Will ESG turn Bitcoin into a digital ‘stranded asset’ or monetary MySpace? (Part I) April 6, 2021 | City Talk In this first instalment of a two-part piece, Ben Ashby, Derek Usher and Gerard Fox explain why environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors will undermine Bitcoin’s eye-catching rise, here focusing on the ‘E’. We have many economic reasons for believing that ‘first-generation’ crypto assets will fail to displace either ‘conventional’ money or traditional safe assets [...]
Retail investors back Rio Tinto climate accountable proposals April 6, 2021 Retail investors have backed climate accountable proposals from Rio Tinto, which the miner will vote on this Friday, as accountability is pushed higher on this year’s agenda. 71.5 per cent of retail investors have called for chairs and CEOs of the mining giant to be held to account on Environments, Social and Governance (ESG) standards, [...]
UK insurers have more work to do on environmental policies March 31, 2021 Insurers in the UK have more work to do on the environmental and social aspects of ESG, though they are global leaders in governance. The UK is underperforming many of its European peers on environmental processes and reporting across a number of areas, research by Big Four consultancy firm EY has found. EY carried out [...]
Impact-Weighted Accounting: the missing ingredient? March 9, 2021 | City Talk Sustainable investment capital increasingly demands evidence that positive impact is produced alongside positive financial return. Once adopted by investors, transparent impact metrics will initiate a rotation in portfolios that moves them away from ‘impact negative’ and toward ‘impact positive’ investments. This impact-driven rotation should produce environmental, social and governance (ESG) Alpha for investors. Impact is [...]
Barclays faces fresh shareholder showdown over fossil fuels ahead of COP26 March 2, 2021 Barclays faces a second consecutive year of shareholder pressure on its position as Europe’s largest fossil fuel financier, after a shareholder resolution has been filed for the bank’s upcoming AGM on 5 May. The resolution calls for financing and exposure to coal, oil and gas to fall in line with the Paris Agreement’s climate goals. [...]
May the forest be with you! Putting a price on nature March 2, 2021 | City Talk Natural resources are often seen as free inputs that any company may use to produce an output. The exploitation cost alone is how firms assess a natural asset’s monetary value. In this way, natural resources tend to be seen as infinite: there is no clear sense of how overexploitation can destroy surrounding ecosystems. Today, many [...]