Submitted by Administrator on Tue, 19/03/2019 - 15:12
20 March 2019 – The Investment Leaders Group found that the data necessary to enable institutional and retail investors to assess the long-term orientation of the investment funds is not currently available.
The Investment Leaders Group (ILG), in co-operation with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), has applied a new Long-term Disclosure Framework to assess whether investment companies are providing the information required to enable their customers to assess the long-term orientation of the fund.
Focusing on a small group of funds that explicitly identify themselves as ‘long-term’, the ILG concluded that the disclosures being provided by funds that identify themselves as ‘long-term’ are insufficient to enable their current or potential clients to assess whether they are actually operating in a long-term fashion. There are particular weaknesses in relation to investment beliefs and stewardship.
These findings are surprising given that, in many cases, the parent organisations have long-standing commitments to responsible investment, and report extensively on responsible investment in responsible investment reports and/or as part of the PRI reporting requirements. Yet, these disclosures are not referred to when describing or marketing these long-term funds.
Kajetan Czyz, Program Director at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, said:
“At present it is very challenging to assess whether and how the aspiration in funds that present themselves as ‘long-term’ feed through to investment beliefs, and from there into objectives (financial and sustainability-related), investment processes, stewardship practices, performance monitoring and reporting”.
