EXCLUSIVES FROM GLOBAL INVESTOR GROUP
Breaking stories from Global Investor Group Here are some of the top stories you may have missed at GlobalInvestorGroup.com
ASSET MANAGEMENT: Female asset manager launches first ESG strategy RadiantESG Global Investors, the women-run asset manager backed by HSBC, has launched its first environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy. The new Positive Change Smaller Companies strategy seeks to address the growing demand for firms that exhibit positive change in achieving sustainable and measurable results with respect to ESG factors. RadiantESG said its approach to ESG analysis uses its proprietary Mosaic data platform to find investment opportunities. NN IP’s green strategies unchanged by new EU Taxonomy NN Investment Partners (NN IP) has said it does not hold natural gas within its green bond funds and that the European Commission’s announcement on December 31 to include natural gas and nuclear in the EU Taxonomy will not change this. Moreover, the Hague-based asset
Winter 2021/22
manager said it does not have nuclear power-related exposure that was constructed after 2019 in its impact strategies. At the start of the year, the European Commission began consulting with Member States on a draft text of a Taxonomy Complementary Delegated Act, which would also cover nuclear and gas activities. BlackRock outlines investments in the metaverse BlackRock has said investment opportunities in the metaverse are a reality today and outlined how the world’s largest asset manager is looking to capitalise in this space. Nigel Bolton, co-chief investment officer of BlackRock Fundamental Equities, said that it’s “not a question of if, but when and how” when it comes to the existence of the metaverse, as global tech giants have clearly highlighted that it’ll be the next frontier in the digital world. He continued by comparing the metaverse to the rise of the internet in the 1990s or the smartphone in the 2000s.
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SECURITIES FINANCE: SEC lending rules require ‘important changes’ - AIMA The US securities regulator’s proposed rule of reporting security loans requires “important changes”, according to the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA). AIMA told Global Investor: “We have filed a response to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) encouraging them to make several important changes to this proposal before considering a final rule.” The trade body’s changes include limiting the scope of the proposal to the wholesale segment of the securities lending market, revising the SEC’s loan definition to exclude all customer short positions and replacing its proposed 15-minute loan-by-loan reporting framework with publishing aggregate, wholesale market loan data on a T+1 basis. MUFG eyes US custody and global lending business Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group has said it is looking to grow its US custody and global securities lending businesses in parallel, as it welcomes its latest recruit from Deutsche. Based in New York, Bill Browne joins Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation (MUTB), the bank’s trust arm, as vice president. Akira Iwamoto, head of the trust division at MUTB New York, told Global Investor: “Bill will be part of a team reporting to Anthony Mogavero which is tasked with supporting both our growing US domestic custody business as well as our global securities lending solutions business.” Industrials most shorted European stocks in January - data Concerns over global supply chains made industrial firms the most shorted European stocks last month, according to new data. Short-position data from SEI Novus, an intelligence firm formed when
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