ESG indices: Dow Jones allies with SAM as STOXX gets new partner

The European sustainable index market is set to get a little more crowded with the news that Dow Jones Indexes and asset manager SAM have terminated their agreement with former partner STOXX.
News Corp.’s Dow Jones and Robeco subsidiary SAM have announced that they are to “deepen” their alliance, with Dow Jones taking over from STOXX as the calculation agent for SAM European sustainability indices.
A new Dow Jones Sustainability Europe Index will launch next month.

Zurich-based STOXX has meanwhile announced that it has signed up a new data provider for its STOXX-branded sustainability indices who will be announced shortly.
It has been at pains to make it clear that it will continue to publish the STOXX Europe Sustainability and EURO STOXX Sustainability indices.
“The scope and depth of the research previouslyprovided by SAM – merely the ranking of index components by sustainability standards – will be improved,” STOXX said. Nothing would change for users, STOXX added.

Dow Jones will start calculating the new Dow Jones Sustainability Europe Index from September 10, with SAM being responsible for the component selections. The methodology would be consistent with the existing Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. SAM and DJ said the collaboration with STOXX had been terminated “amicably”.

The development follows the break-up of the STOXX-Dow Jones joint venture in December last year, when Deutsche Boerse and Swiss exchange group SIX bought out DJ’s stake in STOXX; the latter was allowed to use the Dow Jones brand until the end of 2010. In January this year STOXX named Hartmut Graf to replace departing chief executive Ricardo Manrique.