Funds
Inflection Point Capital Management, the funds firm headed by Innovest co-founder Matthew Kiernan, says its sustainability focused Global Megatrends Alpha Strategy made a 22.2% return in 2012 – compared to 16.6% on the MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI). The fund features a sustainability dividend for investors, which quantifies the social and environmental benefits of the companies in the 35-40 stock fund. Lead portfolio manager is Trevor Stephenson while senior portfolio manager is Bijan Foroodian. The top five holdings are Agrium, BASF, Draegerwerk, Iluka Resources and MTN Group. Home page
The Calvert Global Water Fund returned 7.32% for the final quarter of 2012 – outperforming its benchmark the S-Network Global Water Index, which returned 4.14%. For the whole of 2012, the fund returned 27.13% (benchmark: 21.34%). The fund is managed for Calvert by Catherine Ryan and Matthew Sheldon at Kleinwort Benson Investors.
The TMAM-GO Japan Engagement Fund, the JPY7.1bn (€61m) fund from Governance for Owners (GO) and Tokio Marine Asset Management, has made a gross return of 18.2% since inception in March 2012. This compares to 1.7% return for its TOPIX Mid 400 benchmark. Investors in the 10-stock fund include Tokio Marine itself and Swedish state fund Fjärde AP-fonden (AP4). GO’s investors include CalPERS, Railpen and ICAP founder Michael Spencer’s IPGL investment group.
The newly launched India America Impact Economy Innovations Fund has issued an invitation for proposals. The fund, created by social finance group Dasra, the Omidyar Network and the Rockefeller Foundation, seeks proposals to help foster India’s impact economy “specifically by aiding the growth of the impact investing industry and social enterprise sector”. The fund seeks to support approximately five to eight proposals. The deadline to submit proposals is March 15. Link*More details have emerged about Impax Asset* Management’s new Food & Agriculture Fund. The UCITS IV sub-fund of Impax Funds (Ireland) plc will be managed by Michael Landymore and Simon Higgo who joined the firm, which has £1.9bn under management, in May 2012 from Helvetica Wealth Management Partners in Geneva. They will hold around 30 global stocks.
UK retail fund firm Marlborough is to close its £5.7m Ethical Fund at the end of this month, saying it is too small to manage efficiently. The 34-stock fund – which based its ethical policy on that of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, was launched in 2005 and was run by fund managers Bob Brown, Alan Beaney and Oliver Brown. It had returned 13.03% and 13.49% over one and three years respectively.
Indices
The Bolsa Mexicana de Valores, the Mexican exchange, has announced the new constituents of its IPC sustainable index – with the number of companies included now at 29 from 23 before. The index is put together by UK-based research firm EIRIS and the Universidad Anahuac del Sur. The new entrants for 2013 are: ALSEA, AXTEL, HERDEZ, LAB, Soriana and Televisa. The index has returned 40.23% in US dollars and 30.41% in pesos in the year, the exchange added.
Polish healthcare group Pelion has been admitted to the Warsaw Stock Exchange’s RESPECT corporate social responsibility index. The new 20-company portfolio will become effective as of February 1. “More than four years since the creation of the RESPECT Index project, the exchange has an established group of leaders – companies which participate in subsequent editions of the project. More importantly, however, new companies are joining the project without any additional encouragement,” said Tomasz Wiśniewski, Chairman of the WSE’s Exchange Indices Committee.
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