Company news

March 2023

Marketing Material

GIB Asset Management publishes its 2022 Impact and Engagement Report

London: 02/03/2022 GIB Asset Management (“GIB AM”), the UK-based sustainable asset manager, announced the publication of its 2022 Impact and Engagement Report.

The report covers its two equity funds: GIB AM Emerging Markets Active Engagement Fund (Article 8) and GIB AM Sustainable World Fund (Article 9), as well as its Fixed Income Fund: GIB AM Sustainable World Corporate Bond Fund (Article 9)

The report explains how each Fund approaches impact and engagement, and provides information on both over 2022.

Katherine Garrett-Cox, CEO, GIB Asset Management “As a sustainable-led asset manager, we seek to generate superior investment performance through deep integration of sustainability into investment decision-making. While retaining flexibility, we look for enduring, long-term impact; our report reflects just that. It was evident that we made significant progress with our engagement efforts in 2022, with, for example, 50 total counts of engagement for the GIB AM Sustainable World Fund, and 45 total counts of engagement for the GIB AM Emerging Markets Active Engagement Fund. Given that both funds are in the early stages, we have seen some meaningful achievements in our engagement activities. Our Fixed Income team have dedicated their time to building an approach that ensures sustainability is at the core of every investment decision. We have decided to include this Fund in our report to set off as we intend to carry on, being transparent.

The Sustainable World family of Funds uses a thematic approach to identify the great challenges of our time, their potential solutions, and the scale of the resulting financial opportunity for companies providing those products and services. In this report, we highlight examples, such as Novo Nordisk treating 34 million patients with diabetic care products, or CEMEX’s low carbon cements and concretes to help us meet net zero targets.

Our team has considerable experience in sustainable investing and that has been deployed to create innovative, sustainable solutions for our clients to support their long-term investment objectives.”

February 2023

Marketing Communication

London: 7th February 2023: GIB Asset Management (“GIB AM”), the UK-based sustainable asset manager, announced the launch of the GIB AM European Focus Fund (the “Fund”). The Fund is part of the Amundi UCITS Fund Partners ICAV, an Irish-domiciled UCITS collective investment scheme.

The Fund will be managed by Matthew Kates, supported by Head of Equities Neil Brown and the wider global equities investment team.

The Fund aims to outperform the European benchmark over the long term by identifying and investing in a group of companies that, in the manager’s view, drive the majority of stock market returns over any meaningful time horizon. Central to this investment approach is a fundamental focus on corporate culture.

The Fund, initially, will be available for institutional investors in Ireland and the UK. It will be classified as Article 8 under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).

Matthew Kates, European Fund Manager: “We believe long-run stock market returns are driven by a small number of exceptional companies. The fund seeks to identify these truly sustainable businesses and hold them over a significant timeframe, thereby enjoying the benefits of exponential growth.”

Katherine Garrett-Cox, CEO, further added: “We believe that there should be an emphasis on assessing a company’s character, with a specific focus on how they engage, motivate and develop their workforce as well as their attitudes towards customers and wider stakeholders. This Fund does exactly that by looking for those companies that act and behave in the right manner, set high standards and strive to exceed them.”

The risks materially relevant to the product are equity risk, emerging market risk, volatility risk, concentration risk, depositary risk, investment fund risk, sustainable investment risk, efficient portfolio management risk and financial markets and regulatory change risk.

*See “Risk Descriptions” in the prospectus of the Fund for more information. This is a marketing communication. Please refer to the Fund’s prospectus/information document and to the PRIIPs KIID before making any final investment decisions. Past performance is not a guarantee or indication of future results. The decision of the investor to invest in the promoted fund should consider all the characteristics or objectives of the fund.

October 2022

Marketing Communication

London, 10th October: GIB Asset Management (“GIB AM”), the UK-based sustainable asset manager, today announced the launch of the GIB AM Sustainable World Corporate Bond Fund (the “Fund”). The Fund is part of the Amundi UCITS Fund Partners ICAV, an Irish-domiciled UCITS collective investment scheme.

The Fund will be managed by Samantha Lamb, Head of Fixed Income, supported by a team of three who have over 65 years of combined fixed income experience.

The Fund aims to generate strong returns by investing in corporate bonds of companies, that are believed to have the potential to help solve our greatest challenges for people and the planet. This is done by seeking to identifying the greatest social and environmental challenges; selecting companies with products or solutions that the team believes can solve these challenges; and analysing credit resilience, including assessing the impact of strategic investment decisions. This allows for a diversified portfolio[1] that aims to deliver returns above the benchmark across the cycle.

The Fund will be available for institutional investors in Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden and the UK.

It will be classified as Article 9 under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).

Samantha Lamb, Head of Fixed Income, commented: “We have built a team with diverse backgrounds and expertise within fixed income, but who each share a common goal of delivering returns for our clients while supporting a sustainable future for people and planet. We have also built an investment approach from scratch to help support businesses solving the world’s biggest challenges, while ensuring we invest in some of the most compelling credits from a long-term perspective. The result is a balanced and diversified portfolio that aims to deliver returns, whilst supporting those companies who are making a difference.”

Katherine Garrett-Cox, CEO, further added: “There are few existing options for investors who want to access global fixed income markets in a way that taps into the financial opportunities presented by challenges such as healthy nutrition, connectivity, clean energy and inclusive growth. The Sustainable World Corporate Bond fund aims to fill this gap, with its innovative thematic approach to fixed income investing.”

[1] Diversification does not guarantee a profit or protect against a loss

August 2022

Marketing Communication
 

London: 3rd August 2022: GIB Asset Management (“GIB AM”), the UK-based sustainable asset manager, announced the launch of the GIB AM Emerging Markets Active Engagement Fund (the “Fund”). The Fund is part of the Amundi UCITS Fund Partners ICAV, an Irish domiciled UCITS collective investment scheme.

The Fund will be managed by portfolio managers Greg Konieczny, Kunal Desai and Marcin Lewczuk, who combine 55 years of Emerging Markets and worked together at Mobius Capital Partners with Senior Analyst Megan Ie making 65 years of combined Emerging Market investing experience.

The Fund aims to generate strong returns through its differentiated approach to truly active emerging markets investing. The Fund is underpinned by a proprietary and tested two-pillar process that both identifies undervalued business through its fundamentally-driven bottom-up approach and seeks to generate additional alpha by partnering with all portfolio companies on material ESG and operational improvements. This is reflected in a high conviction, concentrated core strategy with a long-term focus to harness the power of compounding cashflows and active ESG engagement.

The Fund will be available for institutional investors in Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, The Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg and UK. It will be classified as Article 8 under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).

Greg Konieczny, Head of Emerging Markets Equities, commented: “We are excited to be launching our first emerging markets fund, which reinforces GIB AM’s commitment of delivering differentiated, sustainability focused, alpha generating strategies to institutional investors. This fund focuses on the power of constructive, active engagement to drive investment returns, as we consider it an especially powerful driver of outperformance in emerging markets.

We have long believed that a more comprehensive and differentiated approach is to invest exclusively in companies for which potential change through engagement is central to the investment case. This is reflected in an undiluted, focused and high conviction portfolio that generates returns through unlocking inefficiencies and underappreciated value."

Katherine Garrett-Cox, CEO, further added: “We believe that there is a growing need for active investment in emerging markets and having a mind-set for long term returns. This Fund represents another significant milestone for us, following the launch of our Sustainable World Fund in 2021, as we look to continue growing our business and scaling capital in support of sustainable development.”

January 2022

GIB Asset Management and other members of Friends of Ocean Action have today reaffirmed their commitment to advance the Sustainable Development Goal for the ocean, SDG14, with a call for ambitious action in 2022 to achieve a healthy, thriving ocean.

Katherine Garrett-Cox, CEO, GIB Asset Management: "I am delighted to reaffirm GIB Asset Management's commitment to SDG 14 and call for world leaders to raise awareness of the decline of the ocean's health and take effective action to reverse it. For investors, healthy investment returns will be worth less if they do not have a healthy planet in which to enjoy them."

To read the statement, click here.

November 2021

London: 3rd November 2021: GIB Asset Management (“GIB AM”), the $12bn sustainable asset manager and CDP, the non-profit charity which runs the global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states and regions, today call for a rapid acceleration in the transition to a net-zero economy, with a clear start and finish line of now and 2030, in order to prevent irreversible global warming.
 

In a new paper published today, GIB AM and CDP state that emissions cuts by 2030 are urgently required in order to avoid reaching a tipping point where the world’s CO2 budget is exhausted and temperature rises reach over 1.5 degrees Celsius. The two organisations urge corporates, supported by the financial system, to change their behaviour in the understanding that having a net-zero target alone is not sufficient.

Approximately 40% of companies with net-zero targets have yet to disclose how they plan to achieve them, leading to greenwashing fears and stakeholder confusion. First, those businesses who have not got to this stage need to imminently commit to science-based targets. Second, those that have set targets must ensure they are disclosing, ideally through CDP, to track their progress. Organisations should also publish credible transition plans detailing how they will pivot towards a trajectory that aligns with the latest and most ambitious climate science recommendations.

From an investor perspective, this transparent sharing of data will help judge who is the ‘best’ to allocate capital to, and to determine whether engagement strategies have been successful. This information is a vital ingredient needed in the goal to translate real world decarbonisation into reality.

Decarbonisation needs to be comprehensive across all sectors of the economy, but the paper further underlines the particularly radical transformation needed in the power and energy sectors in order to meet the substantial emissions reductions required. Investors must seize the opportunities these sustainability challenges present to help build low-carbon intensive portfolios and more significantly, to help deliver ambitious climate action.

GIB and CDP also call on the financial sector to address the environmental performance disconnect between what is reported and actual impacts. Despite significant momentum in action by firms disclosing their environmental data in 2020, financed emissions remains a challenge, with the climate impact of financial institutions’ investment and lending over 700 times their direct impact on average, according to CDP research. Yet, for many institutions that is not where the focus is, with only 25% reporting the emissions associated with their portfolios, and 49% not analysing their portfolios’ impact on climate at all.

Katherine Garrett-Cox, CEO of GIB Asset Management said, “We are facing an unprecedented climate emergency and without urgent action, there is a clear risk of a tipping point being reached. While governments are setting the stage at COP26, they cannot achieve the needed transformation alone. The Race to Zero is really a race to 2030 and it is vital that we massively speed up action to cut real emissions in the next nine years. Companies that have yet to align their behaviour with net-zero need to do so now, and, as decarbonisation will not be linear, it must apply to all sectors. The route to this, and sustainable growth, starts with innovation.”

Paul Simpson, Chief Executive Officer at CDP said: “Whilst the eyes of the world are on governments at COP26, non-state actors, who are at the heart of the Paris Agreement, must also commit to ambitious climate action. It is vital all companies commit to net-zero targets that are based on science and that they set transition plans to achieve them. What happens within the next five years is likely to determine whether net-zero by 2050 is achievable. Transition plans must include accredited science-based targets and set out actions companies will take to transition to a 1.5°C-aligned business model. This should include capital allocation plans and what governance the company has in place to ensure delivery.”

The full paper “Net-Zero and the Race to 2030” is available here.

October 2021

London: 12 October 2021: GIB Asset Management (“GIB AM”), the UK based sustainable asset manager with $12bn in AUM, announced the launch of the GIB AM Sustainable World Fund (the “Fund”). The Fund is part of the Amundi UCITS Fund Partners ICAV, an Irish domiciled UCITS collective investment scheme.

The Fund will be managed by Neil Brown, Head of Equities, who has pioneered the integration of sustainability into investment for more than 18 years. Neil leads a team of 6 with over 75 years of combined investment and engagement experience.

The Fund aims to outperform the MSCI World Index through investment in global equities that the team believe can create value, while having a positive impact on sustainable development. The Fund will be diversified yet concentrated on the manager’s best ideas, namely the companies that we believe can outperform their peers by sustainably solving the greatest challenges of our time.

The Fund will initially be available for institutional investors in Ireland, as well as other countries in due course, and will be classified as a Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) Article 9, the highest standard in terms of sustainability, which further emphasises GIB AM’s commitment to scale and mobilise capital in support of sustainable development. The Fund will soon be part of the 2.8%* of Funds in the EU classified as Article 9.

Neil Brown, Head of Equities, commented: “Our robust investment process integrates value-creating sustainability at its heart. We employ a six-stage approach to find the businesses whose products are solving the greatest challenges of our time, whose operations are sustainable and who can use this to outperform their peers. We believe in creating a financial return for our clients through companies creating a better world to enjoy them in.”

Katherine Garrett-Cox, CEO, further added: “We believe that strong financial returns are generated by putting a positive impact at the heart of the investment process, and this fund really puts that idea to work. This launch is therefore a significant milestone for our firm in that it is the next step towards leading the way in sustainable investing and building it into everything we do.”

*Source: Morningstar Direct. Data as of 10 July 2021. Based on SFDR data collected from prospectuses on 81.6% of funds available for sale in the EU, excluding money market funds, funds of funds, and feeder funds.