The world will change substantially in the next few years, said asset management firm Robeco today, as it launched a fund aimed at industrial innovation.
The Netherlands-based fund management firm launched the Robeco Global Industrial Innovation Equities fund to invest in “four secular growth trends” associated with the production side of the economy.
Henk Grootveld, head of trends investing, said these four trends were robotics, digital manufacturing, energy transition and cybersecurity.
Benchmarked to the MSCI World All Countries, Robeco said stocks would be selected based on their exposure to trends, fundamental analysis, and integrated sustainability and risk analysis. The fund will be benchmark agnostic, Grootveld said, choosing 40-60 stocks.
The fund’s lead manager is Marco van Lent.
Grootveld said: “In our trends investing team we believe that the world will change substantially in the decades to come and this fund has been developed to capitalise on the production side of the trends we see.”
He added: “First of all, we believe that robots will replace most of the heavy-duty work which is currently still done by humans and, second, that artificial intelligence will boost the productivity of the traditional white-collar worker.”
Thirdly, cheaper renewable energy will fuel more and more local production, the trends team believes.
“The fourth trend is based on our view that in this digital world cyber insecurity is a threat that can only be mitigated with the best possible defense.”
The fund is seen by Robeco as a diversifier to its existing €2.8 billion trends investing product range, which includes consumer trends and ‘New World financial equities’.
The fund is domiciled in Luxembourg and aimed at retail and wholesale distributors.
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