Responsible Investor

RI Global news round-up week 21/01/08

RI’s bite-sized responsible investment news feed.

Zurich-based Sustainable Asset Management (SAM) is building a new sustainable alternative investments arm focusing on hedge funds, water, renewable energy and CO2 centred investment vehicles.
SAM, part of the Robeco funds group, has appointed Reto Kuhn, former head of the Swissair pension fund to run the unit. He starts at the firm on February 1. SAM plans to launch a sustainability hedge fund, one of the first in the market, during the first half of 2008. SAM, which launched in 2005, boosted total assets under management by 50% last year to SFr15.1bn by the end of 2007 from SFr 10.2bn at the end of 2006.
ABP, the €221bn, pension fund for Dutch civil servants, has hired a dedicated researcher to examine human rights issues within the companies it invests in. The fund has appointed Anna Pot, former co-ordinator of economic relations with Amnesty International, for the position. The fund is expected to announce further hires to its growing ESG team under Rob Lake, senior portfolio manager for ESG issues at ABP.
Barclays, the UK banking group, is investing £5m into a £25m social venture capital fund launched by London-based Catalyst Fund Management & Research. The bank’s commitment is an increasing sign that investors are seeing potential in the social investment sector. Catalyst’s new fund is aimed at institutional investors seeking financial returns in sectors where backing successful businesses also generates social returns. The fund is expected to concentrate on

the burgeoning ethical consumerism sector as well as education, health, alternative energy & the environment.
In 2005, Barclays made a similar commitment to the Bridges CDV Fund II, a £75m social venture capital fund run by London-based Bridges Capital, whose board includes private equity luminaries Sir Ronald Cohen, founding partner of Apax, and Nigel Doughty, founding partner of Doughty Hanson. Investors in Bridges’ first fund, which received UK government support, included the pension funds of West Midlands and South Yorkshire councils.
A group of institutional investors running more than $2.1 trillion in assets collaborating under the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) has warned 78 listed companies they are falling short on commitments to the UN Global Compact, which aims to advance human rights, labour standards and good environmental practice in company management. The investors, led by UK fund manager, Morley, also praised a smaller group of companies for good performance in applying the Global Compact. According to the UN Global Compact compliance list, 904 companies – mostly from emerging markets – have failed to produce the updates required by the scheme. The investor group has written to the chief executives of the biggest listed companies whose reports are late, pushing them to comply.
CalPERS, the US pension fund, has reportedly backed activist fund manager Knight Vinke, in which it owns a

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