Pension funds-backed Ethos Foundation has set up its first investment fund meeting the requirements of Article 9 of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), in partnership with the bank of the canton of Vaud, Banque Cantonale Vaudoise (BCV), it announced today.
Assets in the BCV FUND (LUX) – Ethos Climate ESG Ambition fund are invested by BCV’s fund managers only in companies whose business model has a positive environmental impact, and that are run with “sound governance”, it added.
Fund managers will focus on companies whose products, services, or behaviour are in line with the values set out in the Ethos Foundation Charter.
They will apply a rating system developed by Ethos to assess the ESG practices of the companies, it added.
Exclusion criteria to design the portfolio of firms in the new fund result from the “positive impact methodology” published by Ethos in 2022.
Ethos chief executive officer Vincent Kaufmann said: “Only around 100 of the 2,000 companies in our initial investment universe made it through our analysis process. These companies demonstrate a high level of climate ambition and are the only ones that can be selected for the fund portfolio.”
BCV’s asset management team will examine companies’ financials and conduct qualitative, fundamental, and behavioural analyses, to ultimately build a portfolio made up of around 50 companies with an attractive risk/return profile, according to Ethos and BCV.
Eric Chassot, chief investment officer for equities and a fund manager at BCV, added: “This new fund gives private and institutional investors a chance to tap into growth opportunities among companies serving markets around the world whose products and services make a direct or indirect contribution to the ecological transition and to combating climate change.”
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