As part of our ongoing client communications, we like to regularly post quarterly Fund Manager Q&As, in an effort to give a little insight into the strategies of some of the managers within our portfolios. With the financial marketplace experiencing such unprecedented upheaval our Investment Committee is working continuously to adapt our portfolios to accommodate and protect against the global fluctuations and challenges presented by Covid-19.
This month, we hear from Mike Fox – Head of Sustainable Investments and Funds at Royal London Sustainable Funds – who talks about his Sustainable Trust and hope you will find this both an interesting and timely read.
- After a strong performance in 2020 what do you see as the major challenges and opportunities for the fund in 2021?
The main opportunity is for the fund to play a profitable role in the key societal trends of decarbonisation, digitisation and rising healthcare standards. All these trends we believe to be both socially and environmentally positive and financially attractive. The main challenge is the valuation ascribed to these areas is higher than in the past and as the world recovers from Covid more cyclical areas such as oil & gas, which are not appealing to us, perform better.
2. What role does ESG screening play in your stock selection?
As a sustainable fund the investment process is ESG integration. All companies we invest in need to demonstrate the social and environmental benefit of their products and services, and their good standards of ESG management before we begin to consider their financial attractiveness. In the research process we give equality to ESG and financial analysis in the decision-making process.
3. Looking at your most recent geographical breakdown you have a 96.3% performance for UK, US and European stocks. Is there a reason you focus on these regions and not some of the more rapidly developing regions such as Asia?
We tend to find ESG standards are lower in developing regions. The recent pulled IPO of Ant Financial being a good example of this, whereby the Chinese government intervened. This of course can change and probably will over time and we expect to become more active in this area. For now, innovation and high ESG standards are more prevalent in UK/US/Europe.
4. Finally, the London Stock Exchange is the single largest holding in your portfolio. Talk us through the reasoning and why?
LSE is essential infrastructure in the operation of financial markets providing the ability to enact investment approaches via trading shares and derivatives, and the provision of indexes. We think it a better way of investing in financial services than banks. The business itself sits right at the heart of the digitisation of financial markets and as such has very attractive growth prospects.