WHEB launches sustainable investment fund

WHEB Asset Management has launched a sustainable investment fund focusing on worldwide megatrends.

Advertising
The IM WHEB Sustainability fund will invest globally and offer investors exposure to three main megatrends - water, climate change and demographics.

It will invest predominantly in international and UK companies that provide solutions to major global issues, such as water resource shortages, climate change and ageing populations.

The company said the fund would aim to take advantage of a variety of market conditions and position its portfolio defensively or towards growth stocks.

Under normal circumstances, the fund will hold cash on deposit up to 10 per cent of the value of the fund.

But WHEB said the managers may increase cash holdings to more than 10 per cent, which, in the first six months following launch, may be the case. The fund may also invest in derivatives to reduce risk.

The fund will be managed by Clare Brook and Nicola Donnelly, who will be supported by the WHEB research and advisory teams, which include leading figures in the environmental and financial industries.

According to WHEB, although many of the companies operating in the areas of focus for the fund have fallen sharply over the last year, they are now benefiting greatly from global stimulus packages.

With this in mind, the managers said now was a good time to invest in quality, established businesses at the heart of the "third industrial revolution" - or those companies that address clean energy, water infrastructure, efficient resource use and shifting demographics.

Brook said: "I have been investing in environmental companies since 1990, but I have never seen such an exciting combination of compelling valuations and actual change in legislation that is driving profitability."

Donnelly said she was "extremely confident" in the launch due to timing factors, market conditions and the underlying support they had at WHEB.

Fund Facts:

Minimum investment: £3,000

Initial charge: 5 per cent

AMC: 1.5 per cent

Pictet unveils agriculture-focused fund

Pictet & Co on Wednesday declared that its fund distribution firm, Pictet Funds (PF), has unveiled the PF (LUX)-Agriculture fund, according to a report in Eye of Dubai.

The new vehicle, which will be available to institutional, private banking and retail investors in select countries worldwide, will be run by Gertjan van der Geer, senior investment manager at the Swiss private bank.

Blue Marble Capital Launches Cleantech Hedge Fund

May 8, 2009
Canadian asset manager Blue Marble Capital Partners is going ‘green’ with the launch of its first hedge fund. The firm has recently unveiled a cleantech-focused hedge fund that will invest in carbon credits and clean technologies.

The new vehicle, the Carbon Alternative Fund, will be managed by Trevor Giles.

Half of the fund, which will invest globally, will be focused on carbon credits and other carbon-related investments, while the remainder will be invested in public and private clean technology companies, or firms that provide raw materials for these companies.

Blue Marble was formed to provide investors with annual absolute return capital appreciation by managing investments that are expected to benefit from a global transition towards carbon constrained societies, the emergence of global carbon markets, and related transitory resource and commodity imbalances, according to the firm’s Web site.

The new fund is open to Canadian and other international investors, but is currently not open to U.S. citizens.

Blue Marble is also in the process of developing what it believes will be Canada's first carbon-linked note and its first carbon-linked bond.