The London-based ‘green’ fund house Impax Asset Management (Impax) has reported a strong start to 2019 with a 15% increase in assets under management (AUM) throughout the first quarter of the year.
At March 31, the firm’s AUM totalled £13.3 billion (€15.4 billion), representing a growth of 6% since Impax began its financial year on October 1, 2018.
“It has been a strong start to 2019 for Impax. The transition to a more sustainable global economy is yielding a wide range of attractive investment opportunities, and our specialist expertise in this area continues to resonate with asset owners around the world,” said chief executive Ian Simm.
He highlighted that while “many investment managers are experiencing sustained outflows, Impax is attracting a high level of new subscriptions from multiple channels”.
Funds Europe interviewed Simm for the February edition of the magazine. He highlighted that although Impax has a reputation in sustainable investing, he prefers not to use the ESG (environmental, social and governance) tag.
“ESG as a term was only really coined in 2004. We don’t really position ourselves as either an ESG manager or an ESG investor,” he said.
“Generally speaking, our preference is to invest in companies that have got reasonably good governance or very good governance,” he said. “We don’t have a big engagement team and in that sense, we are not activist investors.”
He also pointed out how “ESG is a reminder to do a better job in each of the three areas of decisions on how to deploy investment, the search for opportunities and the management of risk.”
Impax states that its investments are “based on the strong conviction that population dynamics, resource scarcity, inadequate infrastructure and environmental constraints will profoundly shape global markets, creating investment risks and opportunities”.
©2019 funds europe
