PETALING JAYA: Kenanga Investors Bhd has launched the Kenanga Sustainability Series: World Quality ESG Fund, which seeks to provide capital growth by investing in the NT World Quality ESG Fund (target fund) managed by Northern Trust Asset Management.
The target fund aims to deliver long-term capital growth by investing in securities which exhibit quality and have favourable environmental, social and governance (ESG) characteristics, and excluding securities that do not meet certain ESG criteria.
Executive director and CEO Ismitz Matthew De Alwis said the fund is one of the highlights of its 2022 roll-outs, and is something it has been working closely on with Northern Trust Asset Management for a substantial part of the year.
The fund adopts a unique “doing good, doing well” approach which emphasises profitability and sustainability by targeting companies that are ESG leaders and have robust financial fundamentals.
“The holistic integration of sustainability alongside financials challenges the notion ‘ESG investing compromises performance’ and research shows that investing in high quality and high ESG leads to improved risk-adjusted returns. Quality and ESG, taken together, can best be understood as two dimensions of the same underlying theme: sustainability. Ultimately, a sustainable company is one that produces strong results when measured using traditional financial measures as well as ESG related information,“ said Ismitz in a statement today.
The partnership between Kenanga Investors and Northern Trust Asset Management has seen an uptick in impact investing efforts from the local asset and wealth manager. The fund is the second product launched in partnership with Northern Trust Asset Management following the Kenanga Sustainability Series: High Yield Bond Fund which was introduced in March this year. It is also the third in a series of ESG-centric funds which began with the launch of the Kenanga Sustainability Series: Frontier Fund in 2021. The Kenanga Sustainability Series is a suite of multi-asset class products rooted in sustainability considerations to advance long-term financial growth for investors and to generate social and financial value for surrounding communities.
Benchmarked against the MSCI World Index, the fund is suitable for sophisticated investors who seek capital growth through exposure across developed market equities, have a medium to long term investment horizon and are able to withstand medium to high volatility. It has a minimum initial investment amount of RM5,000 and US$1,000.