U.S. News: Investors concerned about climate change and social justice had a bumper year in 2021, successfully pushing companies and regulators to make changes amid record inflows to funds focused on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues.
Comptroller: Comptroller Scott M. Stringer and trustees of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS) and the New York City Board of Education Retirement System (BERS) announced the successful divestment of securities related to fossil fuel companies, bringing the total divestment across all funds to an estimated $3 billion.
InvestmentNews: As the asset management industry continues to fall over itself rolling out products tapping into the growing appeal of various environmental, social and governance causes, signs of new life are emerging in an anti-ESG niche category.
BNN Bloomberg: Europe’s main investment management association says U.S. and U.K. hedge funds will need to meet a higher ESG reporting bar than many in the industry had expected, if they want to continue selling to clients in the EU.
BNN Bloomberg: Despite a drop in clean-energy stocks and intensifying concerns about widespread greenwashing, the market for investment products sold as being ESG-related had another record year by most yardsticks.
Institutional Asset Manager: Managed by PGIM Fixed Income – one of the largest fixed income managers in the world, with USD964 billion in assets under management – the new PGIM Strategic Income ESG Fund is a flexible, ESG-integrated multi-sector bond strategy, with a focus both on income generation and capital appreciation.
BNN Bloomberg: An obscure rule covering environmental, social and governance investing in Europe has prompted hedge-fund managers in the U.S. and U.K. to turn to their lawyers.
Cision: Bridgewater Associates ("Bridgewater"), a global leader in institutional portfolio management and the largest hedge fund in the world, today announced the launch of a new Rising Fellows program to expand access to the financial services industry for students in their first year of university and help build a more diverse pool of future investment talent.
Investment Week: Over the last decade, ESG has gone from fringe to mainstream. Investors and companies have seen increased regulation, demands for transparency and a quest for standards all while tackling greenwashing.
Institutional Asset Manager: The largest US companies are disclosing their environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies at historically high levels, according to Corporate Governance Outlook 2022, a new report from Equilar, which features commentary from Orrick and DFIN.
Financial Standard: In a new research note, MFS global investment strategist Robert Almeida and research analyst Robert Wilson shared insights on the problematic side of the global push towards sustainability.
BNN Bloomberg: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. plans to reduce the carbon footprint of its fossil-fuel clients by a fifth, and slash emissions in other key customer groups as it acts on a pledge to make its business climate neutral by mid-century.
Nasdaq: Climate-focused investors are calling on the major U.S. banks to quickly scale back their financing of new fossil fuel development, saying current commitments by the banks to curb global emissions are not enough.
Hedge Week: The SBAI, a global alliance of alternative investment managers and allocators and custodian of the Alternative Investments Standards, has released the second in a series of reports on culture and diversity – Beyond the Metrics: Demonstrating and Assessing Diversity in Smaller Asset Managers.
Yahoo Finance: A group of Wall Street giants has decided to sit out one of the industry’s biggest coalitions: the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.
BNN Bloomberg: Quant powerhouse AQR Capital Management LLC is planning a new ESG-focused mutual fund that will not only favor the best-behaved companies, but also punish the worst by betting against them.
U.S. News: Top asset manager BlackRock Inc on Tuesday said it wants U.S. companies to aim for a board that is 30% diverse and, for the first time, contains at least one member from an under-represented group.
BNN Bloomberg: If the financial-services industry was a country, it would rank as the world’s fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
BNN Bloomberg: The climate finance industry continued to grow rapidly this year. Having weathered Covid-19 and taken center stage at COP26, the trend seems unlikely to slow in 2022.
Yahoo Finance: Investors face an historic opportunity to put their money into renewable energy assets given the global consensus that now exists around the urgent need for decarbonization, according to Brookfield Asset Management Inc.
Investment Week: More than 85% of investors have said the fund management industry has a problem with greenwashing, while 81% want to see more standardisation of ESG reporting, globally.
Axios: Driving the news: MSCI, the investment research and data firm, is out with its list of trends and topics to watch in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) space.
Yahoo Finance: California’s climate-conscious policies aren’t matched by the investment choices of its largest public pension funds, according to a report from two environmental groups.
Institutional Investor: Environmental, social, and governance investing poses little cost to investors, according to a study from researchers at Arizona State University.
Cision: The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation released a new study today measuring diversity in the U.S.-based financial industry revealing that only 1.4 percent of assets are entrusted by investors to asset management firms owned by women and/or people of color, despite diverse-owned firms' investment performance matching those of their less-diverse peers.
Institutional Investor: One of the least diverse industries in finance appears to be putting some real muscle behind its promises of more diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Institutional Asset Manager: Joyce will be responsible for driving the ESG strategic direction for the US, collaborating closely with senior leadership, global ESG teams, investment management, marketing, and distribution teams across the firm globally, as well as with external industry partners, and reports jointly to Lisa Jones, President and CEO of Amundi US, and Head of the Americas, and Elodie Laugel, Chief Responsible Investment Officer, Amundi based in Paris.
Financial Post: Norway’s $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund will ask many of the companies in its portfolio to take more specific action on climate change, its head of governance and compliance said.
Yahoo Finance: As the dust settles on the finance industry’s most ambitious climate coalition yet, some of the biggest names on Wall Street have remained conspicuously absent.
Yahoo Finance: When Mala Gaonkar and Divya Nettimi open their hedge funds in 2022, some bankers and investors expect they could each start with $1 billion or more under management. There has never been such a large launch by a woman-led firm, never mind two in the same year.
Cision: A new report from Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., a global Fintech leader, reveals assets in dedicated environmental, social, and governance (ESG) mutual funds, ETFs, institutional mandates, and private funds are on track to grow from $8 trillion today to as much as $30 trillion by the end of this decade.
Institutional Asset Manager: From March 2022, Goldman Sachs Asset Management will expect companies in the S&P 500 and FTSE 100 to have at least one diverse director from an underrepresented ethnic minority group on their board.
Institutional Asset Manager: A global alliance of financial institutions, investors and businesses have announced the launch of ‘ESG Book’, a new central source for accessible and digital corporate sustainability information, with the aim of shaping the future of ESG data.
BNN Bloomberg: About $120 billion flowed into these funds in 2021 as investors increase their bets on companies deemed to have the highest environmental, social and governance credentials.
BNN Bloomberg: A group of government and markets veterans have started a hedge fund that will invest only in companies that promote positive environmental, social and governance policies -- and bet against those that fail to do so.
Institutional Asset Manager: Just under three out of five businesses says they have lost out on work as a result of ESG issues within their own company. A total of 59 per cent of senior executives across eight global sectors revealed that poor ESG performance is hitting their company hard.
Castle Hall helps investors build comprehensive due diligence programs across hedge fund, private equity and long only portfolios More →
Montreal
1080 Côte du Beaver Hall, Suite 904
Montreal, QC
Canada, H2Z 1S8
+1-450-465-8880
Halifax
84 Chain Lake Drive, Suite 501
Halifax, NS
Canada, B3S 1A2
+1-902-429-8880
London
1 Pancras Square, Kings Cross
Gridiron Building
London, N1C 4AG
United Kingdom
+44 20 3036 0828
Prague
Pujmanové 1753/10a,
140 00 Praha 4.
Czech Republic
Manila
Ground Floor, Three E-com Center
Mall of Asia Complex
Pasay City, Metro Manila
Philippines 1300
Abu Dhabi
Floor No.15 Al Sarab Tower,
Adgm Square,
Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Tel: +971 (2) 694 8510
Sydney
Level 36 Governor Phillip Tower
1 Farrer Place Sydney 2000
Australia
+61 (2) 8823 3370
Copyright © 2021 Entreprise Castle Hall Alternatives, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Terms of Service and Privacy Policy