AMAS, the Swiss asset management association, is calling on asset owners to make asset managers more accountable for stewardship, as it can affect how pension funds consider impact investing in private markets.
“If we want to move ahead with stewardship, I wish asset owners to be more explicit to make asset managers accountable,” AMAS’s chief executive officer, Adrian Schatzmann, said during a webinar discussing the results of a study published by the Institute for Wealth & Asset Management at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), in collaboration with start-up rezonanz and Greenpeace Switzerland.
The study concluded that asset managers refrain from asserting impact-oriented environmental stewardship.
So far, the interest in engagement and stewardship is “very mixed”, with a considerable number of investors that do not really look into the topic, and do not exercise pressure on asset managers, Schatzmann added.
From their side, asset managers can take on more responsibilities, launching more sustainable products – a market that has already experienced positive change – and discussing with clients ways to prioritise sustainability, he said.
Peter Haberstich, solutions campaigner on climate change and sustainable finance at Greenpeace Switzerland, said during the webinar that asset managers should fulfil their responsibilities by publicly committing to aligning their business models with international environmental goals, committing to a positive impact, and laying out clear expectations toward investee companies, enforcing them through collective actions.
Money managers have to pursue consistent and credible escalation strategies to pressure companies to change their business models, he added.
Schatzmann underlined that asset managers invest on behalf of clients, including pension funds that want to “optimise returns” against risks and benchmarks, and “we have to respect this mandate”.
“We are not activist investors,” he said, adding that he agreed with the study on asset managers refining their unique selling point (USP) to show what investors should expect on sustainability.
The path ahead
AMAS is exploring new ways for collective actions to include smaller asset managers in engagement processes, the CEO said. Another question that will become important is whether split voting on investment and mutual funds is the right answer, according to Schatzmann.
“It is a key topic that comes out of the US, where more and more investors disagree with an asset manager taking a particular view. This is something we need to be prepared for; we need to accommodate this discussion,” he said.
Beyond stewardship, the question is how to mobilise capital, particularly in private markets, where pension funds’ private equity allocations, for example, are still low.
Schatzmann said that an obsession for keeping costs low, and investing passively, or a lack of education might be among the reasons preventing pension funds from impact investing.
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