RI round-up September 21

Dutch institutions targeted by ESG consultants
Dutch institutional investors are to be the target of a new environmental, social and corporate governance partnership between consultants Asset4 and 21C. ESG firm Asset4 has teamed up with Dutch consultant and interim investment management services company 21C. The latter will market Asset4 in the Netherlands, focusing on institutional investors.
“The ultimate challenge in portfolio allocation and risk management is how to create a portfolio that incorporates long-term sustainability themes across all asset categories, sectors and countries,” said 21C director Marcel de Berg.
“Lucas van Berkestijn, Asset4 channel manager, said: “We can ensure that global investors have access to our world-class ESG database and flexible tools in order to identify those sustainability criteria that are relevant to creating shareholder value and achieve long-term outperformance.”
Governance expert takes Canadian pension professorship
Corporate governance expert Prof. Alexander Dyck is to be the inaugural holder of a pension management professorship set up by four Canadian pension funds. He’ll focus on governance, organization design, and the “drivers of organizational performance”.
The funds have established the ICPM Professorship in Pension Management at the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management at the University of Toronto.
The professorship was established with the support ofCanada Pension Plan Investment Board, Hospitals of Ontario Pension Plan, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System.
EU seminar to probe financial institutions’ corporate governance
The European Commission’s European Corporate Governance Forum is to host a seminar in Brussels on October 12 looking at corporate governance in financial institutions – with the role of shareholders to the fore.
“Panellists will consider the role of shareholders in promoting good corporate governance in financial institutions and discuss the way shareholders have fulfilled that role before and after the financial crisis,” says the invitation.
Introduced by David Wright, the Commission’s deputy director-general for the internal market, topics under discussion are: the role of directors; governance of internal control and risk management: shareholder control, supervision and external audit.
Speakers will include Commerzbank chairman Klaus-Peter Mueller, UBS company secretary Luzius Cameron, Fidelity corporate finance director Trelawny Williams. Also speaking will be Marcello Bianchi of Italy’s CONSOB, who also chairs the OECD’s Steering Group on Corporate Governance.
Other names to note are Marco Becht, European Corporate Governance Institute, and Pierre Delsaux, director for the Commission’s department of Free Movement of Capital, Company Law and Corporate Governance.