FIS Maastricht 2022

In this October 2022 publication, we once again provide updated ESG scores for the countries in our actively covered universe. We have reduced the number of countries we actively cover to 84, to account for sanctions and investability. We also provide an update on our changes to the measurement process for the “unsustainable practices,” “ […]

At IMCO, we believe that one of the keys to better long-term investment results is successfully navigating long-term trends. Long-term trends are powerful economic, demographic, policy, technological, and capital market forces that can impact investment returns and risk in material ways. For us, successfully navigating long-term trends does not mean correctly identifying and capitalizing on […]

At IMCO we believe that short-term volatility of returns is generally unavoidable for long-term investors. We think the key is not to try to alter asset mix to avoid it, but to have adequate liquidity to survive and, in some cases, profit from it. In retrospect, “down markets” may seem predictable and can cause investors […]

New data on negative SDG contributions, methodology enhancements and additional data granularity provide a more comprehensive picture of the market

The Importance of the Transition to Clean Energy. As is abundantly clear, climate change threatens to dramatically alter our planet, our societies, and our economies. Unless governments, businesses, investors, workers, and all stakeholders take meaningful steps to severely reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and rapidly adapt to a low carbon world, we face unprecedented […]

The first half of 2022 has been very impactful for Trillium’s Shareholder Advocacy program. We have seen important successes on racial justice, gender equity, climate change, toxic chemical reductions, and many other topics. We have also continued to press forward on issues such as worker empowerment, paid sick leave, and Indigenous People’s rights. We saw […]

For long-term investors like GIC, climate change is a key concern given its imminent impact on the value of physical assets and companies over time. Hence factoring this into both our top-down and bottom-up processes is vital to ensuring a resilient portfolio.

Developing sustainability disclosure standards to help place $5 trillion per year for a decade.

Economic super cycles are far from a new topic. Perhaps the most famous examples are the technically inspired Elliott wave and the technologically grounded Kondratiev wave, named after Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratiev, who was executed for his evangelism of the topic.

Investors across the landscape of private and public markets are facing ratcheting pressure to allocate their capital in ways that create progress on environmental and social issues, in addition to delivering returns. In private equity, general partners (GPs) and limited partners (LPs) are increasingly being held to account by their respective stakeholders.

Millions of people around the world are saving money to meet personal goals—funding a comfortable retirement, saving for someone’s education, or buying a home, to name a few.

Ukraine, the China challenge, and the revival of the west

The coronavirus pandemic has cast a dark shadow over global trade. In the short term, lockdowns across the world have caused an unprecedented collapse in cross-border commerce, a rational response, guided by public health considerations. But the fear is that these negative effects will persist long after the crisis has passed. This, though, shouldn’t be a foregone conclusion.

The net-zero transition requires the rapid development at scale of new technologies, energy-efficient infrastructure, and carbon capture and storage. A carbon price, together with the elimination of fossil-fuel subsidies, would give investors powerful incentives to finance these and other imperatives.

With the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events comes a heightened focus on the risks of climate change. But in the absence of consistent financial reporting on them, investors and companies have had to hazard their own guess of the impact on markets and the economy.

The rise of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing is nothing short of extraordinary. A decade ago ESG was a mysterious acronym to many and it had to compete with an alphabet soup of terms such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Responsible Investing (RI), and Impact Investing (II). ESG has risen to the top, but though popular, the acronym has suffered from varied and somewhat confusing definitions.

Climate change is altering the dynamics of investing by posing meaningful risk while also offering substantial new opportunities for growth and investment. Institutional investors of all types increasingly recognize climate change as the primary driver of the greatest shift in asset allocation over the past 50 years, and investors are thinking critically about how to address this megatrend in their portfolios.

Institutional portfolios such as corporate pension plans are increasing allocations to illiquid private assets seeking better returns and diversification. However, as allocations increase, a portfolio’s liquidity structure changes, sometimes abruptly.

The Emerging Markets (EMs) have not only emerged as key engines of global growth and political influence, their openness to foreign investment, and the depth and breadth of their capital markets have also grown tremendously over time.

The significant impact of Covid on the economic and financial markets landscape has brought into focus the importance of incorporating uncertainty into any investment process. The unusual, stop-start nature of activity has no historical precedent, meaning lessons from the past are unlikely to be very helpful.