Responsible Investor

RI Global news round-up 20/11/07

RI’s bite-size summary of responsible investment news.

A major Swiss pension fund is seeking a fund manager for a $90m (€61m) active global sustainable equity mandate via the IPE-Quest manager search system. The mandate will be benchmarked against the MSCI World index with interested managers asked to show a three-year performance record to the end of September, 2007.
The fund says that knowledge and experience of Swiss pension funds would be an advantage to applying managers.
Closing date for applications is November 29. For full information, click on the following link IPE-Quest.
Alex van der Velden, executive director of FairPensions, the UK lobby group for responsible investing, is leaving to join PGGM, the Dutch pension fund giant as a responsible investment director in charge of portfolio assets.
PGGM is seeking to increase its five-strong responsible investment team to about eight members and will make further recruitments in the coming months, according to Marcel Jeucken, head of responsible investment at the fund. FairPensions is currently seeking a replacement for Van der Velden.
Al Gore, former vice president of the United States and co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has joined the board at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm.
The move marks a tie-up between Generation Investment Management, the fund manager Gore set up with

ex-Goldman Sach’s Asset Management chief, David Blood, and Kleiner Perkins to fund technology start-ups technology that address global climate change. In July this year, Responsible Investor revealed that Generation was planning to make its first private equity style investments with the launch of a hybrid climate change solutions fund that also invests in smaller companies. The fund is the first addition to Generation’s range since it began two and a half years ago investing in large cap equities based on sustainable investment criteria. Kleiner
Perkins plans to co-locate a new European operation at
Generation’s offices in London. Kleiner has historically focused on investments in the US, but recently expanded operations into China. Read RI’s July scoop on Generation
Harcourt, the Swiss alternative fund manager, has joined forces with Swedish financial services groups Storebrand, Folksam and KPA Pension, to launch the Belair Sustainable Alternatives SRI Fund, a global fund of hedge funds. The Luxembourg-based SICAV will invest in diverse hedge funds using an SRI framework devised by Storebrand and Folksam.
HSBC’s corporate and investment banking division has launched a range of structured investment products that will give various exposures to the group’s Global Climate Change Index, which began in September. The products include tracker, leveraged and principal protected notes as well as constant proportion portfolio insurance.

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