

La Compagnie Benjamin de Rothschild, the risk management arm of the venerable Edmond de Rothschild Group, has launched a sustainable version of its quantitative investment strategy – with the support of a large Swiss pension fund.
Rothschild has teamed up with Switzerland’s Conser Invest, the responsible fund and advisory group with CHF1.7bn (€1.4bn) under management, to offer the ‘QuAM Sustainable’ strategy.
A Swiss public pension fund has put CHF50m into the strategy, Conser Invest Chief Executive Natacha Guerdat told Responsible Investor, although she declined to name it.
“This investment process offers investors a unique combination allowing them to meet their return and capital preservation objectives while taking into account their environmental, social and governance concerns,” Rothschild and Conser Invest said in a joint statement.The move builds on Rothschild’s existing QuAM quantitative offering which has attracted than CHF5bn in assets. The QuAM approach comprises tactical and dynamic asset class allocation to invest in a UCITS long-only fund universe.
Under the deal, Conser Invest will be responsible for selecting the investment universe using an in-house sustainability screen. This filter is applied to more than a 1,000 products – both equity and bonds.
Conser Invest, headed by CEO Guerdat, one of the co-founders of the Sustainable Finance Geneva association, was set up in 2007. Its board includes Pierre Henchoz, the former private banker who headed the investment management division at the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF).
Meanwhile, the third annual Geneva Forum for Sustainable Investment is scheduled for June 8, with Unilever CEO Paul Polman as keynote speaker.