Responsible Investing
We listen. We strive to act fairly, responsibly and ethically; and be open and transparent. This culture has shaped our approach to responsible investing and framed how we think and act regarding Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues.
At a corporate level, we believe all investing should be responsible. We are signatories to the Principles for Responsible Investment, accredited by the Living Wage Foundation and are a certified CarbonNeutral® company.
We also aim to be responsible corporate citizens. For example, we use our sponsorship of London Pulse to encourage gender diversity in financial services and offer internship programmes to help younger people into the workplace.
An Active Investment Decision
As an investor-focused business, we recognise that motivations for investing can be very different, and this extends to how investors consider ESG.
Within our Group we offer solutions that aim to deliver specific ESG outcomes from responsible to philanthropic investing.
For those funds and solutions that are not managed to a specific ESG objective; where we believe it is in our clients’ best interests and if this does not conflict with our ability to deliver to our stated investment objectives, we tend to favour investments that exhibit positive ESG practices.
To help investors decide whether an investment meets their ESG criteria, we aim to make it clear how we approach ESG within each fund, portfolio or solution. We want investors to be confident that any investments they make with us are suitable for their own or their clients' ESG needs.
Sustainable Investing
The management of Sustainability Risk forms a part of the due diligence process implemented by the Investment Manager within its fund range. The Funds primarily invest in liquid derivatives and traditional assets to offer the highest probability of delivering on the Funds’ goals. Outlined below are the considerations across the different asset classes the Funds invests in.
Equities and corporate bonds
For those funds that do not have specific sustainability criteria, a qualitative approach to sustainability is applied when selecting equities and corporate bonds. This involves assessing companies the firm might invest in on six criteria to ascertain how sustainable the company is. The six criteria are armaments, alcohol, tobacco, pornography, gambling and fossil fuels. As the Fund that does not have a specific sustainability criteria, a low sustainability score does not necessarily preclude an investment in a company being made. With regard to voting, Atlantic House actively votes on all matters brought before shareholders and votes with all stakeholders in mind.
Government bonds
The Funds includes a high proportion of G7 government debt which tend to act as collateral pools for the Funds’ derivative transactions. A limited amount of sustainability research is conducted on government bond holdings. In future, as “green” government debt becomes available, the Fund will seek to include such debt within the Fund.
Derivatives
Most derivatives within the Funds tend to be traded directly with large, global banks, so sustainability considerations are taken into account with regard to the underlying of any derivative held but also the nature of the banks on the others side of the Fund’s derivative transactions. For those Funds that do not have a specific sustainability criteria, a low sustainability score for a particular company does not necessarily preclude a derivative investment in a company being made. The sustainability policies of the banks the Fund trades with are monitored and are increasingly friendly from a sustainability standpoint. As sustainable investing develops it is likely that derivatives on sustainably based underlyings will appear and become liquid. Atlantic House is well positioned to take advantage of this given its position in the derivatives market but will not sacrifice liquidity for higher sustainability scores. The Investment Manager has determined that the Sustainability Risk (being the risk that the value of the Fund could be materially negatively impacted by an ESG Event) faced by the Fund is negligible.