News from Eurosif Member Affiliates
February 2007
New Member Affiliates
LODH joins Eurosif
Founded in 1796, Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch & Cie is the oldest firm of private bankers in Geneva and one of the largest in Switzerland and in Europe. The Group has an active presence in the world's leading financial centres with over 22 offices in 17 countries. With some CHF 167 billion under management, the Group offers its private and institutional clients a broad range of asset management advice, financial products and specialized services. Since 1997, they have been working on integrating environmental, social and corporate governance challenges into financial analysis and asset management.
http://www.eurosif.org/member_affiliates/list_of_member_affiliates/lodh
VINIS joins Eurosif
VINIS is based in Vienna/Austria and was founded at the beginning of 2006. The company cooperates with VBV-pension fund (market leader in Austria) and Erste Bank/ ERSTE SPARINVEST (#2 asset management company in Austria). VINIS is the market leader for SRI - fund products in Austria with Assets under Management of some EUR 450m at the moment. There are currently 4 fund products available - one fixed income product (European bonds) and three equity products (Austria, Europe, Global).
http://www.eurosif.org/member_affiliates/list_of_member_affiliates/vinis
Member Affiliate News
Bank Sarasin and Rabobank
On December 29th, 2006, Rabobank acquired all outstanding Sarasin class A shares held by Eichbaum Holding Ltd. Rabobank has thus become the majority shareholder of Sarasin with a 46 % stake in its equity capital and 69 % of its voting rights. Sarasin will retain its operational independence as a Swiss bank and remain listed on the SWX Swiss Exchange. Rabobank has no intention of increasing its stake in Sarasin beyond the level of the exercised call option.
BNP Paribas AM selected by French civil servants scheme (ERAFP) for one of the SRI mandates
With the selection of its fund managers, ERAFP has just concluded the largest SRI equity tender to date in France, involving an amount that could top 1.2 billion Euros over the next four years. BNP Paribas AM, Integral Development AM (IDEAM) and Robeco Institutional AM have been awarded the SRI mandates, and Pictet Asset Management (Eurosif member affiliate) has been awarded the stand-by mandate.
Calvert Partners with Sudan Divestment Task Force and Save Darfur Coalition
Calvert announced that it has formed a partnership with the Sudan Divestment Task Force (SDTF), a project of the Genocide Intervention Network, together with the Save Darfur Coalition (SDC), to assist the growing Sudan divestment campaign in the U.S., Calvert will immediately begin working with SDTF and SDC by lending its analytical expertise and offering advocacy support.
EIRIS publishes “Valuing ESG issues”
This document provides a global survey of over 40 mainstream and socially responsible institutional investors’ views on the extent to which environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues impact upon a companies’ financial performance. Institutional investors highlighted a total of 15 sectors where ESG issues have a significant impact on financial value, and they also ranked the top five ESG issues for each of the 15 sectors they identified. Climate change emerged as the key ESG issue most likely to impact upon company performance and was ranked as one of the five most financially significant ESG issues for nine of the ‘top 10’ sectors.
A copy of the report can be downloaded from the EIRIS website.
ESADE Sets up the Institute for Social Innovation, Aimed at NGOs and the Business World
ESADE has established a new institute, the Institute for Social Innovation, intended to bring together and lead all training, research and knowledge dissemination in the ambits of social responsibility and business ethics. The Institute will also deal with themes related to leadership and management of non-governmental organisations, and collaboration between enterprise and the third sector.
Ethos Publishes the 2007 Edition of its Proxy Voting Guidelines
Every year, the Ethos Foundation publishes an updated version of its proxy voting guidelines encompassing the latest developments in corporate governance. Ethos' general meeting analyses are based on these guidelines. Voting recommendations are posted on the Foundation's website two days before general meetings. Compared to the previous edition, the voting recommendations of chapter 4 dedicated to remunerations were amended.
The 2007 edition of Ethos' Proxy voting guidelines is available free of charge in electronic format.
FEE survey finds partial or full adoption of accrual accounting principles in 80% of countries surveyed
The Paper published by the European Federation of Accountants (FEE) monitors the progress made by European countries concerning the implementation of accrual accounting in the public sector. FEE supports the move from cash to accrual accounting and this Paper is the most recent in the series of FEE published papers on topics in connection with accrual accounting.
For more information contact Michael Sotiriou or visit www.fee.be
Fortis Launches Carbon Neutrality Programme
Having already developed business opportunities in carbon banking and renewable energy financing, Fortis is now committed to full carbon neutrality for all their operations in 2007. The programme includes carbon neutrality for global operations, formulation of climate change policy and study of Fortis’s overall carbon impact, risks and opportunities.
FTSE Group introduces new climate change criteria to its FTSE4Good Series
FTSE Group, the global index provider, takes another step forward in the area of corporate social responsibility benchmarking, as it launches a new set of criteria to offset climate change for its FTSE4Good Index Series. FTSE4Good is used by investors as a way to identify companies with positive records of CSR practice; and by listed companies as a framework for best practice. The introduction of FTSE4Good climate change criteria keeps the index series aligned with one of the major concerns facing business and investors today. The implementation of these criteria is a milestone in the ongoing evolution of the leading SRI index series, and is supported by industry experts, government and NGOs alike.
GES Vice President advances to Norges Bank
After five successful years at GES Investment Services, Vice President John Howchin has accepted an offer to become senior analyst at Norges Bank Investment Management. NBIM is responsible for investing the international assets of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund. John will join their corporate governance team and assume responsibility for the environmental analysis. GES has begun a recruitment process for a position as Marketing Director and hope to have a successor in place shortly.
For further inquiries, please contact: magnus.furugard@ges-invest.com
INrate announces that the sustainability fund Raiffeisen Futura Swiss Stock won the Lipper Award for the 2nd time
The development of investment universes offering investors and portfolio managers information to create sustainable and financially attractive products and investments is based on the INrate sustainability analysis. The award confirms INrate’s conviction, that sustainability and investment success create a successful synthesis.
SNS Asset Management introduced a new institutional fund in the field of Microfinance
SNS Asset Management, part of SNS REAAL, has initiated the launch of a large institutional investment fund aimed at providing resources for microfinance institutions. Large institutional investors have been invited to participate in the SNS Institutional Microfinance Fund, which has a target size of € 100 million.
For further information, please contact: SNS REAAL Corporate Communications
