More US investment giants sign up to UN Principles for Responsible Investment

Affiliate companies of leading US finance giants Legg Mason Inc., Janus Capital Management and Bank of New York Mellon have signed up to the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) recently.

The new signatories are Legg Mason’s Legg Mason Investment Counsel (LMIC) and Permal Group arms, Janus’s indirect subsidiary INTECH Investment Management and BNY Mellon’s Standish Mellon Asset Management.

Another new signatory is Sjatte AP-fonden (AP6), the SEK18.5bn (€2bn) Sixth Swedish National Pension Fund which specialises in unlisted investments. The PRI initiative now has a total of 1,129 signatories.

LMIC provides investment counsel and trust services for affluent individuals, families, trusts, foundations, endowments and institutions. Its Socially Responsive Investment department manages more than $775.1m in assets.

London-headquartered Permal was established in 1973 and focuses on fund of hedge funds and private equityfund of funds, with around $18.7bn under management.

Legg Mason is one of the oldest and largest asset management companies in the world, with a total of $646bn in assets under management. It operates a “multi-affiliate” business model – where each fund management house has investment autonomy.

Legg Mason, founded in 1899 in Baltimore, joined the Ceres network of investors and environmental groups in 2010, showing its commitment to “long-term stakeholder engagement, public disclosure of its environmental and social impacts and strategies, and continuous sustainability performance improvement”.

INTECH uses an investment process based on a mathematical theorem and has around $41.9bn under management. Janus itself was already a PRI signatory.

Standish Mellon has around $104bn in assets under management across a range of asset classes. Standish uses MSCI ESG Research to integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into its investment process.