The increasing awareness and actions on climate change, environmental and wellbeing issues are having a strong impact on the way people and companies invest their money, with the result that sustainable investments are playing a stronger role in the markets and in the management of wealth and assets.
This theme was discussed during MeDirect Bank’s first medirectalk investment webinar for 2021 with the topic “Sustainable Investment: investing for a better future”. The online event was organised in conjunction with Liontrust, a UK-based specialist fund management company that takes pride in having a distinct culture and approach to running money. Its purpose is to have a positive impact on its investors, stakeholders and society.
The session started with a brief introduction by James Beddall, Head of International Sales at Liontrust Asset Management, who explained that Liontrust’s sustainability team is celebrating its twentieth anniversary since being set up. He added that the team is now managing a third of Liontrust’s assets worth in total Eur30 billion.
The keynote speech was delivered by Mike Appleby, Fund Manager with the Liontrust Sustainable Future Funds. Appleby has been with the team for the past 17 years and has considerable experience in this area.
He explained the different approaches to sustainable investment and demonstrated how sustainable investing can provide returns over the long term while meeting investors’ values. Appleby explained the themes that will help the world become cleaner, healthier and safer. During his presentation, he identified companies that will drive and benefit from these transformative developments.
Appleby argued that better Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards drive investment performance. He focussed on various sustainability trends such as innovation in healthcare, healthier lifestyles, smarter agriculture, the sharing economy and many others as the key drivers for the change in the approaches to investing.
The session ended with an interactive Q&A session during which Appleby replied to the participants’ questions.
The Liontrust Sustainable Investment team has been managing money for the past 20 years since it launched its Sustainable Future (SF) funds in 2001. The 13-strong team’s distinct investment process combines negative and positive screening and identifies the key structural growth trends that will shape the sustainable global economy of the future.
For more information on the Liontrust funds, contact MeDirect on 2557 4400 or on info@medirect.com.mt. In order to view the latest medirectalk session, as well as the past events visit: https://www.medirect.com.mt/invest/medirectalk