Activist shareholder

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activist_shareholder 

An activist shareholder is a shareholder who uses an equity stake in a corporation to put pressure on its management. A fairly small stake (less than 10% of outstanding shares) may be enough to launch a successful campaign. In comparison, a full takeover bid is a much more costly and difficult undertaking. The goals of activist shareholders range from financial (increase of shareholder value through changes in corporate policy, cost cutting, etc.) to non-financial (disinvestment from particular countries, etc.). Shareholder activists can address self-dealing by corporate insiders, although large stockholders can also engage in self-dealing to themselves at the expense of smaller minority shareholders.

According to research firm Insightia, a total of 967 listed companies globally were publicly subjected to activist demands in 2022, up from 913 in 2021. Shareholder activism can take any of several forms: proxy battles, publicity campaigns, shareholder resolutions, litigation, and negotiations with management. Daniel Loeb, head of Third Point Management, is notable for his use of sharply written letters directed towards the CEOs of his target companies.

Activism may help to address the principal-agent problem where the management (agents) do not adequately respond to the wishes of the principals (investors) of publicly traded companies. In the 2010s, investments in the activist asset class grew, with activists receiving coverage by the media and positive attention from investors. Activists have typically engaged in adversarial campaigns, but have also in some cases been able to acquire board seats with a formal proxy context.

Shareholder activists are making their mark on mergers and acquisitions as well – a 2015 survey of corporate development leaders found that 60% of respondents saw shareholder activism affecting transaction activity in their industry. Increasingly, however, the non-financial form of shareholder activism is affecting companies in a range of sectors. Shareholders, often with a comparatively small stake in a company, are seeking to influence the company's environmental and social performance.

Some of the recent activist investment funds include: California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), Icahn Management LP, Santa Monica Partners Opportunity Fund LP, State Board of Administration of Florida (SBA), and Relational Investors, LLC.

Due to the Internet, smaller shareholders have also gained an outlet to voice their opinions. In 2005, small MCI Inc. shareholders created an online petition to protest the MCI/Verizon merger.

History

Corporations in 18th-century Europe were privileged and relatively uncommon, but in the United States became much more common, starting with 300 in the 1790s and expanding by around 26,000 between 1790 and the 1860s, resulting in about 15 times the corporations in Great Britain by 1830. These early corporations contained various provisions for corporate governance, including restricted charters, bylaws, prudent-mean voting rules, dividend payments, and press coverage.

From 1900 to 1950, about 1.22 "offensive" activist initiatives occurred per year, with more occurring in the 1940s and 1950s. Notable investors included Cyrus S. Eaton, Phoenix Securities Corporation, Benjamin Graham, J. Paul Getty, and Malcolm Chace. Activism was likely limited by the lack of ownership dispersion, meaning that many corporations had large shareholders with sizable blocks (10 to 20% of total shares) who already exerted significant control over the corporation.

Notable investors

Notable activist investors include: Isaac Le Maire (1558–1624), Carl Icahn, Nelson Peltz (Trian), Bill Ackman (Pershing Square), Daniel Loeb (Third Point), Barry Rosenstein, Larry Robbins (Glenview), David Einhorn, Gregg Hymowitz (EnTrust Global), Christer Gardell (Cevian Capital), and Ryan Cohen.

During the 1980s, activist investors such as Carl Icahn and T. Boone Pickens gained international notoriety and were often perceived as "corporate raiders" for acquiring an equity stake in publicly owned companies, like Icahn's investment in B.F. Goodrich, and then forcing companies to take action to improve value or rid themselves of rebel intruders like Icahn by buying back the raider's investment at a fat premium, often at the expense of the other shareholders. More recently, activist investor Phillip Goldstein suggested that the role of the activist investor has moved from green mail to one of being a catalyst to unlock value in an underlying security, and says that the public perception of activist investors as "corporate raiders" has dissipated.

In 2019, notable activist investors included Starboard Value, Ancora, Icahn, Elliot Management, and Third Point (Loeb). In 2019, mutual funds such as Wellington Management Company had begun to show signs of activism.

Outreach strategies

Activist investors advertise their message out in various ways including postal mail, websites, and social media.

Statistics

As of 2018, there had been an average of 272 activist campaigns per year in the United States, including 47 proxy contests. About 47% of targeted companies were outside of the United States.

Proxy advisory

As of 2020, passive investors such as index funds by Vanguard as well as non-activist but still active management investors such as mutual funds play a significant role in corporate governance. These firms use proxy advisory firms such as Institutional Shareholder Services to receive recommendations on how to vote on shareholder proposals.

Funding

Activist investors are often hedge funds funded by accredited investors and institutions. In 2019, institutions were demanding more upfront explanation of the activist ideas before funding, and in some cases requiring that the funds be placed into special purpose vehicles specifically for the project. Activist hedge funds, which are hedge funds that "take concentrated positions in the equity of public corporations and actively engage with corporate managers" can address the principal-agent problem and limit self-dealing by providing management with high-powered incentives to increase value.

Offensive versus defensive

Shareholder activism can be categorized as "offensive" or "defensive"; in the latter case, an existing shareholder attempts to correct some deficiency, while offensive activists build a position with the intention to agitate for change. Shareholders can also initiative a derivative suit to force action by the corporation. Shareholders can also engage in a securities class action but these are typically not associated with activism.

Laws

In the United States, acquisition of over 5% of beneficial ownership in a company with the intention to influence leadership must be accompanied by a Schedule 13D filing; investors who do not intend to become activists may file a Schedule 13G instead.

Proxy access

Main article: Proxy statement § Proxy access

Historically, investors were required to mail separate ballots when trying to nominate someone of their own to the board, but beginning in 2015, proxy access rules began to spread driven by initiatives from major institutional investors, and as of 2018, 71% of S&P 500 companies had a proxy access rule.

Voting

Votes for the board may be "straight" or "cumulative". In straight voting (aka statutory voting), shareholders get one vote per share on all ballot questions (e.g., candidates for the board of directors or shareholder proposals). In cumulative voting, a shareholder receives a general vote for however many number of ballot questions there are. The votes can then be all cast for (or against) a single ballot question, which makes it easier for minority shareholders to elect candidates. There has also been a movement toward "majority" voting, where a candidate must receive the majority of votes. Most large corporations are incorporated in Delaware due to the well-developed Delaware General Corporation Law; in Delaware, cumulative voting is optional, but exceptions exist; for example, a California-based but Delaware-registered corporation may be "pseudo-foreign" under California law and therefore have to comply with California law.

Performance

Taking an activist approach to public investing may produce returns in excess of those likely to be achieved passively. A 2012 study by Activist Insight showed that the mean annual net return of over 40 activist-focused hedge funds had consistently outperformed the MSCI world index in the years following the global financial crisis in 2008. Activist investing was the top-performing strategy among hedge funds in 2013, with such firms returning, on average, 16.6% while other hedge funds returned 9.5%.

Research

Shareholder activism directed at both European and American companies has been surging. A 1996 study found that larger firms with higher institutional holdings made firms more likely to be targeted by activist investors. Researchers also try to understand what makes company a desirable target for an activist investor. Lately, both scholars and practitioners started using machine learning methodologies to predict both targets and activists.

Retail involvement

Any shareholder, including a non-institutional retail investors, may submit a shareholder proposal in the United States, and between 1934 and the mid-1980s these shareholders typically submitted proposals. One estimate placed institutional owners at 68% of shares and retail at 32% of shares, but 98% of institutional owners vote and only 28% of retail owners vote. Institutional shareholders, however, often vote automatically upon the advice of proxy advisory firms; allowing retail shareholders to vote based upon a guideline ("standing voting instructions") has been proposed to increase their involvement.

Various websites have been created to facilitate retail involvement, including Moxy Vote, Shareowners.org, United States Proxy Exchange and ProxyDemocracy.org, but over time these generally shut down.

Political and labor involvement

Labor unions, including through pension funds such as CalPERS coalitions such as the Change to Win Federation often engage in shareholder proposals. The Shareholder Rights Group is a coalition of shareholder proposal advocates.

Socially responsible investing

Organizations such as the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), As You Sow and Ceres use shareholder resolutions, and other means of pressure, to address issues such as sustainability and human rights.

For an analysis of the hundreds of annual shareholder resolutions, see Proxy Preview.

Community development financial institution

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_development_financial_institution 

A community development financial institution (US) or community development finance institution (UK) - abbreviated in both cases to CDFI - is a financial institution that provides credit and financial services to underserved markets and populations, primarily in the USA but also in the UK. A CDFI may be a community development bank, a community development credit union (CDCU), a community development loan fund (CDLF), a community development venture capital fund (CDVC), a microenterprise development loan fund, or a community development corporation.

CDFIs are certified by the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which provides funds to CDFIs through a variety of programs. The CDFI Fund and the legal concept of CDFIs were established by the Riegle Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act of 1994. Broadly speaking, a CDFI is defined as a financial institution that: has a primary mission of community development, serves a target market, is a financing entity, provides development services, remains accountable to its community, and is a non-governmental entity.

The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) authorized CDFIs certified by the CDFI Fund to become members of the Federal Home Loan Banks. The Final Rule regarding the procedures and standards to be used by the Federal Home Loan Banks to evaluate applications for membership from CDFIs were published in the Federal Register Federal Housing Finance Agency in January 2010. The Final Rule is to be implemented by the 11 Federal Home Loan Banks, each of which will evaluate membership applications independently.

CDFIs are related to, but not identical with, Community Development Entities (CDEs). CDEs are also certified by the CDFI Fund at the U.S. Department of Treasury but have somewhat different qualifications. Many CDFIs have also been certified as CDEs. The primary purpose of CDEs is to utilize the New Markets Tax Credit Program (NMTCs). NMTCs were created to induce equity investments in low-income communities. Traditionally, because of the NMTCs and the structure of the industry, investments in CDFIs were typically limited to larger financial institutions. Investment access to CDFIs appears to be on the rise, as CNote, a company that lets individuals invest their savings in CDFIs, recently received qualification from the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer their CDFI-based product to non-accredited investors.

CDFIs may be subject to oversight by federal financial institution regulators (e.g., banks, credit unions) or may be "unregulated" at the federal level, and subject only to the laws of the states in which they operate. There is no mandatory rating or ranking system imposed on all CDFIs which would allow investors or others to evaluate their performance, safety, or strength. However, since 2004 approximately 100 CDFI loan funds have received voluntary ratings of their financial strength and social impact performance by Aeris, an independent rating and information service. In 2015, Standard & Poor's issued its first ratings assessments of CDFI loan funds.

Scope

In 2006, there were approximately 1,250 CDFIs, consisting of:

• More than 500 community development loan funds;
• More than 350 community development banks;
• More than 290 community development credit unions;
• More than 80 community development venture capital funds.

In May 2010, the CDFI Fund had certified 862 CDFIs, 57 Native CDFIs (serving Native Americans), and 4,230 CDEs, each of which may have multiple subsidiary investment funds.

Nationwide, over 1,000 CDFIs serve economically distressed communities by providing credit, capital, and financial services that are often unavailable from mainstream financial institutions. CDFIs have loaned and invested billions of dollars in the most distressed communities in the United States, leveraging capital from the private sector for development activities in low wealth communities across the nation.

While there are numerous organizations certified as CDFIs by the CDFI Fund, it is believed that there are thousands of financial institutions serving the needs of low-income people or communities in the United States, that either have not applied for CDFI status or have otherwise not been able to fulfill all of the requirements for formal CDFI certification.

In fiscal year 2016, CDFI program awardees originated $3.6 billion in loans and investments to finance more than 13,000 businesses and 33,000 affordable housing units.

Notable depository CDFIs

ShoreBank, headquartered in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago, was founded in 1973. By 2007, it had over $2 billion in assets. ShoreBank had branches in Chicago’s South and West sides, Cleveland, and Detroit, but in August 2010 the bank was declared insolvent and its branches were taken over by Urban Partnership Bank. Its holding company ShoreBank Corporation, still exists and promotes its community development mission through affiliates in Oregon and Washington state, and in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. ShoreBank’s international consulting services have offices in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and London, and projects in 30 countries around the world.

OneUnited Bank, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest African-American-owned CDFI in the country, with branches in Boston, Miami, Florida, and Los Angeles, California.

The Center for Community Self-Help, another leading CDFI, was founded in 1980 in Durham, North Carolina. Self-Help's home and business lending has provided low-wealth, minority, rural and female borrowers with over $5.24 billion in financing. Much of this is through Self-Help's national secondary market program, which enables conventional lenders to make more home loans to low-wealth families. Self-Help also develops commercial and residential real estate and operates retail credit unions. In response to predatory lenders increasingly targeting family wealth in poor and minority communities, Self-Help in 1999 worked with the NAACP, AARP, and other North Carolina groups to form the Coalition for Responsible Lending and help enact one of the United States' first laws to curb predatory mortgage lending. In 2002, Self-Help founded the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization that recommends solutions to predatory lending abuses.

Notable non-depository CDFIs

• Capital Impact Partners
• Chicago Community Loan Fund
• Enterprise Community Partners
• Local Initiatives Support Corporation
• ShoreBank
• Southern Bancorp

Other countries

While the CDFI Fund and its certifications are limited to the United States, the UK also has about 70 CDFIs and a trade association, Responsible Finance, formerly known as the Community Development Finance Association (CDFA). The UK government has provided various funding initiatives for CDFIs and credit unions, and Community Investment Tax Relief (somewhat similar to New Markets Tax Credit) is available on investments in accredited CDFIs.

Institutions similar in purpose exist around the world, such as Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and Clann Credo in Ireland, though they are not generally called CDFIs, but are described by other terms such as microfinance institutions or social banks or social investment funds.

Socially responsible investing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socially_responsible_investing

 

Sustainable energy is one of many forms of sustainable investing.

Socially responsible investing (SRI), social investment, sustainable socially conscious, "green" or ethical investing, is any investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social/environmental good to bring about social change regarded as positive by proponents. Socially responsible investments often constitute a small percentage of total funds invested by corporations and are riddled with obstacles.

Recently, it has also become known as "sustainable investing" or "responsible investing". There is also a subset of SRI known as "impact investing", devoted to the conscious creation of social impact through investment.

In general, socially responsible investors encourage corporate practices that they believe promote environmental stewardship, consumer protection, human rights, and racial or gender diversity. Some SRIs avoid investing in businesses perceived to have negative social effects such as alcohol, tobacco, fast food, gambling, pornography, weapons, fossil fuel production or the military. The areas of concern recognized by the SRI practitioners are sometimes summarized under the heading of ESG issues: environment, social justice, and corporate governance.

Socially responsible investing is one of several related concepts and approaches that influence and, in some cases, govern how asset managers invest portfolios. The term "socially responsible investing" sometimes narrowly refers to practices that seek to avoid harm by screening companies for ESG risks before deciding whether or not they should be included in an investment portfolio. However, the term is also used more broadly to include more proactive practices such as impact investing, shareholder advocacy and community investing. According to investor Amy Domini, shareholder advocacy and community investing are pillars of socially responsible investing, while doing only negative screening is inadequate.

Some rating companies focus specifically on ESG risk ratings as they can be a "valuable tool for asset managers". These ratings firms evaluate companies and projects on several risk factors and typically assign an aggregate score to each company or project being rated. The firms publish reports of their ESG risk findings.

History

The origins of socially responsible investing may date back to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). In 1758, the Quaker Philadelphia Yearly Meeting prohibited members from participating in the slave trade – buying or selling humans.

One of the most articulate early adopters of SRI was John Wesley (1703–1791), one of the founders of Methodism. Wesley's sermon "The Use of Money" outlined his basic tenets of social investing – i.e. not to harm your neighbor through your business practices and to avoid industries like tanning and chemical production, which can harm the health of workers. Some of the best-known applications of socially responsible investing were religiously motivated. Investors would avoid "sinful" companies, such as those associated with products such as guns, liquor, and tobacco.

The modern era of socially responsible investing evolved during the political climate of the 1960s. During this time, socially concerned investors increasingly sought to address equality for women, civil rights, and labor issues. Economic development projects started or managed by Dr. Martin Luther King, like the Montgomery bus boycott and the Operation Breadbasket Project in Chicago, established the beginning model for socially responsible investing efforts. King combined ongoing dialog with boycotts and direct action targeting specific corporations. Concerns about the Vietnam War were incorporated by some social investors. Many people living during the era remember a picture in June 1972 of a naked nine-year-old girl, Phan Thị Kim Phúc, running towards a photographer screaming, her back burning from the napalm dropped on her village. That photograph channeled outrage against Dow Chemical, the manufacturer of napalm, and prompted protests across the country against Dow Chemical and other companies profiting from the Vietnam War.

During the 1950s and 1960s, trade unions deployed multi-employer pension fund monies for targeted investments. For example, the United Mine Workers fund invested in medical facilities, and the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) financed union-built housing projects. Labor unions also sought to leverage pension stocks for shareholder activism on proxy fights and shareholder resolutions. In 1978, SRI efforts by pension funds was spurred by The North will Rise Again: Pensions, Politics, and Power in the 1980s and the subsequent organizing efforts of authors Jeremy Rifkin and Randy Barber. By 1980, presidential candidates Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown advocated some type of social orientation for pension investments.

SRI had an important role in ending the apartheid government in South Africa. International opposition to apartheid strengthened after the 1960 Sharpeville massacre. In 1971, Reverend Leon Sullivan (at the time a board member for General Motors) drafted a code of conduct for practicing business in South Africa which became known as the Sullivan Principles. However, reports documenting the application of the Sullivan Principles said that US companies were not trying to lessen discrimination in South Africa. Due to these reports and mounting political pressure, cities, states, colleges, faith-based groups and pension funds throughout the US began divesting from companies operating in South Africa. In 1976, the United Nations imposed a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa. From the 1970s to the early 1990s, large institutions avoided investment in South Africa under apartheid. The subsequent negative flow of investment eventually forced a group of businesses, representing 75% of South African employers, to draft a charter calling for an end to apartheid. While the SRI efforts alone did not bring an end to apartheid, it did focus persuasive international pressure on the South African business community.

The mid and late 1990s saw the rise of SRI's focus on a diverse range of other issues, including tobacco stocks, mutual fund proxy disclosure, and other diverse focuses.

Since the late 1990s, SRI has become increasingly defined as a means to promote environmentally sustainable development. Many investors consider effects of global climate change a significant business and investment risk. CERES was founded in 1989 by Joan Bavaria and Dennis Hayes, coordinator of the first Earth Day, as a network for investors, environmental organizations, and other public interest groups interested in working with companies to address environmental concerns.

In 1989, representatives from the SRI industry gathered at the first SRI in the Rockies Conference to exchange ideas and gain momentum for new initiatives. The name has since changed to The SRI Conference which meets annually at Green Building certified establishments and has attracted over 550 persons annually since 2006. This conference is produced by First Affirmative Financial Network, an investment advisory firm that works with advisors nationwide providing portfolios specialized in sustainable and responsible investing.

The first sell-side brokerage in the world to offer SRI research was the Brazilian bank Unibanco. The service was launched in January 2001 by Unibanco SRI analyst Christopher Wells from the São Paulo headquarters of the bank. It was targeted at SRI funds in Europe and the US, although it was sent to non-SRI funds both in and out of Brazil. The research was about environmental and social issues (but not governance issues) regarding companies listed in Brazil. It was sent for free to Unibanco's clients. The service lasted until mid-2002.

Drawing on the industry's experience using divestment as a tool against apartheid, the Sudan Divestment Task Force was established in 2006 in response to the genocide occurring in the Darfur region of the Sudan. Support from the US government followed with the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007.

More recently, some social investors have sought to address the rights of indigenous peoples around the world who are affected by the business practices of various companies. The 2007, SRI in the Rockies Conference held a special pre-conference specifically to address the concerns of indigenous peoples. Healthy working conditions, fair wages, product safety, and equal opportunity employment also remain headline concerns for many social investors. In the mid-2010s, some funds developed gender lens investing strategies to promote workplace equity and general welfare of women and girls.

Current strategies

Socially responsible investing is a growing market in both the US and Europe. In particular, it has become an important principle guiding the investment strategies of various funds and accounts.

Government-controlled funds

Government-controlled funds such as pension funds are often very large players in the investment field, and are being pressured by the citizenry and by activist groups to adopt investment policies which encourage ethical corporate behavior, respect the rights of workers, consider environmental concerns, and avoid violations of human rights. One outstanding endorsement of such policies is The Government Pension Fund of Norway, which is mandated to avoid "investments which constitute an unacceptable risk that the Fund may contribute to unethical acts or omissions, such as violations of fundamental humanitarian principles, serious violations of human rights, gross corruption or severe environmental damages".

In the 2000s and 2010s, pension funds were under pressure to disinvest from the arms company BAE Systems, partially due to a campaign run by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). Liverpool City Council has passed a successful resolution to disinvest from the company, but a similar attempt by the Scottish Green Party in Edinburgh City Council was blocked by the Liberal Democrats.

Mutual funds and ETFs

Socially responsible mutual funds counted by the 2014 Trends Report increased in number to 415 in 2014, up from 333 in 2012, 250 in 2010, 173 in 2005 & 2007, 189 in 2003, and 167 in 2001. The overall number of mutual funds incorporating environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) has increased four-fold since 2012. Additionally, 20 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that incorporate ESG criteria were identified with $3.5 billion in assets at the end of 2011, an increase from the 8 ETFs with $2.25 billion in net assets identified in its 2007 report—the first Trends report to track ETFs [11]. Unlike the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), which severely limits the extent to which socially responsible goals can be considered in managing corporate and Taft-Hartley pension assets (due to ERISA's overriding goal of protecting employees' pensions), registered investment companies can take these factors into account so long as the disclosure and other requirements of the Investment Company Act of 1940 are met. US SIF maintains charts describing the socially responsible mutual funds offered by its member firms.

Separately managed accounts

According to the 2014 Report on US Sustainable, Responsible and Impact Investing Trends, among separate account managers, 214 distinctive separate account vehicles or strategies, with $433 billion in assets, incorporated ESG factors into investment analysis. Where a separate account is subject to ERISA, there are legal limitations on the extent to which investment decisions can be based on factors other than maximizing plan participants' economic returns.

Shareholder advocacy

Shareholder resolutions are filed by a wide variety of institutional investors, including public pension funds, faith-based investors, socially responsible mutual funds, and labor unions. In 2004, faith-based organizations filed 129 resolutions, while socially responsible funds filed 56 resolutions.

Regulations governing shareholder resolutions vary from country to country. In the United States, they are determined primarily by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates mutual funds and applies the 1940 Act and by the Department of Labor, which regulates certain plans and applies ERISA.

These regulatory regimes require pension plans and mutual funds to disclose how they voted on behalf of their investors. U.S. shareholders have organized various groups to facilitate jointly filing resolutions. These include the Council of Institutional Investors, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and the US SIF.

From 2012 to 2014, more than 200 US institutions and investment management firms filed or co-filed proposals. These institutions and money managers collectively controlled $1.72 trillion in assets at the end of 2013. The top categories of environmental and social issues from 2012 to 2014 were political contributions and climate change and environmental issues.

Community investing

Community investing, a subset of socially responsible investing, allows for investment directly into community-based organizations. Community investing institutions use investor capital to finance or guarantee loans to individuals and organizations that have historically been denied access to capital by traditional financial institutions. These loans are used for housing, small business creation, and education or personal development in the US and UK, or are made available to local financial institutions abroad to finance international community development. The community investing institution typically provides training and other types of support and expertise to ensure the success of the loan and its returns for investors.

Community investing grew almost 5% from 2012 to 2014. Assets held and invested locally by community development financial institutions (CDFIs) based in the US totaled $64.3 billion at the start of 2014, up from $61.4 billion in 2012.

Investing strategies

Investing in capital markets

Social investors use several strategies to maximize financial return and attempt to maximize social good. These strategies seek to create change by shifting the cost of capital down for sustainable firms and up for the non-sustainable ones. The proponents argue that access to capital is what drives the future direction of development. A growing number of rating agencies collects both raw data the ESG behaviour of firms as well as aggregates this data in indices. After several years of growth the rating agency industry has recently been subject to a consolidation phase that has reduced the number of genesis through mergers and acquisitions.

ESG integration

ESG integration is one of the most common responsible investment strategies and entails the incorporation of environmental, social and governance ("ESG") criteria into the fundamental analysis of equity investments. According to the non-profit Investor Responsibility Research Center institute (IRRCi), approaches to ESG integration vary greatly among asset managers depending on:

• Management: Who is responsible for ESG integration within the organization?
• Research: What ESG criteria and factors are being considered in the analysis?
• Application: How are the ESG criteria being applied in practice?

Negative screening

Negative screening excludes certain securities from investment consideration based on social or environmental criteria. For example, many socially responsible investors screen out tobacco company investments.

The longest-running SRI index, the Domini 400—now the MSCI KLD 400—was started in May 1990. It has continued to perform competitively —with average annualized total returns of 9.51% through December 2009 compared with 8.66% for the S&P 500.

Despite this impressive growth, it has long been commonly perceived that SRI brings smaller returns than unrestricted investing. So-called "sin stocks", including purveyors of tobacco, alcohol, gambling and defense contractors, were banned from portfolios on moral or ethical grounds. And shutting out entire industries hurts performance, the critics said. However, in a comprehensive study, financial economists Lobe, Roithmeier, and Walkshäusl taking the position of the advocatus diaboli, answer the question whether to invest in a socially responsible way – or not? They create a set of global and domestic sin indexes consisting of 755 publicly traded socially irresponsible stocks around the world belonging to the Sextet of Sin: adult entertainment, alcohol, gambling, nuclear power, tobacco, and weapons. They compare their stock market performance directly with a set of virtue comparables consisting of the most important international socially responsible investment indexes. They find no compelling evidence that ethical and unethical screens lead to a significant difference in their financial performance, which is in contrast with the results of prior studies on sinful investing.

Divestment

Divesting is the act of removing stocks from a portfolio based on mainly ethical, non-financial objections to certain business activities of a corporation. Recently, CalSTRS (California State Teachers' Retirement System) announced the removal of more than $237 million in tobacco holdings from its investment portfolio after six months of financial analysis and deliberations.

Shareholder activism

Shareholder activism efforts attempt to positively influence corporate behavior. These efforts include initiating conversations with corporate management on issues of concern, and submitting and voting proxy resolutions. These activities are undertaken with the belief that social investors, working cooperatively, can steer management on a course that will improve financial performance over time and enhance the well being of the stockholders, customers, employees, vendors, and communities. Recent movements have also been reported of "investor relations activism", in which investor relations firms assist groups of shareholder activists in an organized push for change within a corporation. This is done typically by leveraging their enhanced knowledge of the corporation, its management (often via direct relationships), and the securities laws as a whole. Hedge funds are also major activist investors; while some pursue socially responsible investing goals, many simply are seeking to maximize fund returns. Pension plans subject to ERISA are somewhat more constrained in their ability to engage in shareholder activism or the use of plan assets to promote public policy positions; any expenditure of plan assets must be aimed at enhancing participants' retirement income.

Shareholder engagement

A less vocal subtype of shareholder activism, shareholder engagement requires extensive monitoring of the non-financial performance of all portfolio companies. In shareholder engagement dialogues, investees receive constructive feedback on how to improve ESG issues within their sphere of influence.

Positive investing

Positive investing is the new generation of socially responsible investing. It involves making investments in activities and companies believed to have a positive social impact. Positive investing suggested a broad revamping of the industry's methodology for driving change through investments. This investment approach allows investors to positively express their values on corporate behavior issues such as social justice and the environment through stock selection – without sacrificing portfolio diversification or long-term performance. Positive screening pushes the idea of sustainability, not just in the narrow environmental or humanitarian sense, but also in the sense of a company's long-term potential to compete and succeed. In 2015, Morgan Stanley conducted a review of 10,000 funds and concluded "strong sustainability" investments outperformed weak sustainability investments, tackling the idea of a trade-off between positive impact and financial return. while the Global Impact Investing Network's 2015 report on benchmarks and returns in impact investing in private equity and venture capital found market-rate or market-beating returns were common in impact investments.

Impact investing

Impact investing is the alternative investment (i.e. private equity) approach to Positive investing. In 2014, the UK's presidency of the G8 created a Social Impact Investment Task Force which produced a series of reports that defined impact investing as "those that intentionally target specific social objectives along with a financial return and measure the achievement of both". Impact investing, capitalizes businesses that potentially provide social or environmental impact at a scale that purely philanthropic interventions usually cannot reach. This capital may be in a range of forms including private equity, debt, working capital lines of credit, and loan guarantees. Examples in recent decades include many investments in microfinance, community development finance, and clean technology. Impacting investing has its roots in the venture capital community, and an investor will often take active role mentoring or leading the growth of the company or start-up.

Community investment

By investing directly in an institution, rather than purchasing stock, an investor is able to create a greater social impact: money spent purchasing stock in the secondary market accrues to the stock's previous owner and may not generate social good, while money invested in a community institution is put to work. For example, money invested in a Community Development Financial Institution may be used by that institution to alleviate poverty or inequality, spread access to capital to under-served communities, support economic development or green business, or create other social good. In 1984, Trillium Asset Management's founder, Joan Bavaria, invited Chuck Matthei of the Institute for Community Economics (ICE), an organization that helps communities create and sustain land trusts, to a meeting of US SIF. It is likely that this was the first time a nonprofit organization with a loan fund would meet directly with SRI managers. Trillium clients began investing in ICE later that year.

Global context

Socially responsible investing is a global phenomenon. With the international scope of business itself, social investors frequently invest in companies with international operations. As international investment products and opportunities have expanded, so have international SRI products. The ranks of social investors are growing throughout developed and developing countries. In 2006, the United Nations Environment Programme launched its Principles for Responsible Investment which provide a framework for investors to incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into the investment process. PRI has more than 1,500 signatories managing more than US$60 trillion of assets.

The Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA) is a collaboration of membership-based sustainable investment organisations around the world including the European Sustainable Investment Forum (Eurosif), UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF), the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA), Responsible Investment Association (RIA Canada), the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment (US SIF), Dutch Association of Investors for Sustainable Development (VBDO) and Japan Sustainable Investment Forum. The GSIA’s mission is to deepen the impact and visibility of sustainable investment organizations at the global level.

The Global Sustainable Investment Review 2018, the fourth edition of this biennial report, continues to be the only report collating results from the market studies of regional sustainable investment forums from Europe, the United States, Japan, Canada, and Australia and New Zealand. It provides a snapshot of sustainable investing in these markets at the start of 2018 by drawing on the in-depth regional and national reports from GSIA members: Eurosif, Japan Sustainable Investment Forum (JSIF), Responsible Investment Association Australasia, RIA Canada and US SIF. This report also includes data on the African sustainable investing market, from the African Investing for Impact Barometer, and on Latin America from the Principles for Responsible Investment.

The 2018 report shows that globally, sustainable investing assets in the five major markets stood at US$30.7 trillion at the start of 2018, a 34% increase in two years. From 2016 to 2018, the fastest growing region has been Japan, followed by Australia/New Zealand and Canada. These were also the three fastest growing regions in the previous two-year period. The largest three regions— based on the value of their sustainable investing assets—were Europe, the United States and Japan.

An 2020 global analysis from Morningstar indicates that assets in sustainable funds reached nearly, $1.7 trillion. Net flows into U.S. sustainable funds surpassed $51 billion.

ESG ratings agencies

Asset managers and other financial institutions increasingly rely on ESG ratings agencies to assess, measure and compare companies' ESG performance. Sustainsalytics, RepRisk are two examples of dedicated ESG ratings agencies, while global credit agencies like S&P Global are also seeing the value to adding ESG ratings to their data offerings.

Responsible, ethical and impact investing in Australia

According to the Responsible Investment Association Australasia's annual Responsible Investment Benchmark Report Australia 2020, in 2019 and for a 19th consecutive year, funds managed under responsible investment approaches grew as a proportion of total professionally managed investments in Australia to AU$1,149 billion in assets under management, a rise of 17% from 2018. Ever more investment managers are applying a range of responsible investing approaches – from ESG integration and negative screening to sustainability-themed and impact investing.

The report shows that in Australian and multi-sector responsible investment funds outperformed mainstream funds over 1, 3, 5 and 10 year time horizons.

Australian responsible investment managers still favour ESG integration and corporate engagement and voting above negative and norms-based screening as their primary responsible investment approaches for constructing portfolios, but managers are increasingly driving capital towards sustainability-themed and impact investing allocations with allocations to Green, Social and Sustainability Bonds more than doubling since last year.

Negative screening of fossil fuels by the responsible investment industry is beginning to catch up to consumer interest. In 2018, only 5% of responsible investment AUM for survey respondents who conduct negative screening was screened for fossil fuels. In 2019, 19% of responsible investment AUM has been screened for fossil fuels, growing 14 percentage points from the year before. For consumers using RIAA's Responsible Returns search and compare tool for ethical investments, the most important exclusionary screens are fossil fuels, human rights abuses and armaments.

Responsible, ethical and impact investing in New Zealand

The Responsible Investment Association Australasia's annual Responsible Investment Benchmark Report New Zealand 2020 details the size, growth, depth and performance of the New Zealand responsible investment market over 12 months to 31 December 2019 and compares these results with the broader New Zealand financial market. In 2019, funds managed under responsible investment approaches grew as a proportion of total professionally managed investments in New Zealand to NZ$153.5 billion in 2019. This represents 52% of the estimated NZ$296 billion of total professionally managed assets under management in New Zealand.

Increasingly, responsible investors in New Zealand have shifted their focus from screening out harmful industries such as tobacco and armaments, to considering broader environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors when investing. Impact investing has grown over 13 times from NZ$358 million in 2018 to NZ$4.74 billion in 2019. Green, Social and Sustainability (GSS) Bonds account for 88% of products using this approach.

Ethical investment in the UK

In 1985, Friends Provident launched the first ethically screened investment fund with criteria which excluded tobacco, arms, alcohol and oppressive regimes. Since 1985, over 90 investment funds have launched offering a wide range of investment criteria; both negatively screened and with positive investment criteria i.e. investing into companies involved in promoting sustainability.

Since 1985, most of the major investment organizations have launched ethical and socially responsible funds, although this has led to a great deal of discussion and debate over the use of the term "ethical" investment. This is because each of the fund management organizations tend to apply a slightly different approach to running their funds.

In recent years there has been growth in the market for high social impact investments; this is a style of investing where the businesses receiving investment have social or environmental goals as a primary purpose.

UK institutions are also getting more involved in social investing through impact investing funds, with those such as Deutsche Bank and NESTA, alongside other institutions such as Big Issue Invest, which is part of The Big Issue group.

As of June 2014, EIRIS estimated that there was over £13.5 billion invested in Britain's green and ethical retail funds. This estimate is based on around 85 UK domiciled green or ethical retail funds and it seeks to not include UK money invested in ethical funds domiciled outside of the UK.

In higher education

In 2007, the Dwight Hall organization at Yale University launched the first undergraduate-run socially responsible investment fund in the United States, known as the Dwight Hall Socially Responsible Investment Fund.

Comparison with conventional investing

While conventional investing only focuses on the traditional risk and returns considerations in making investment decisions, socially responsible investing considers other ethical factors as discussed above. Hence, the question often arise as to whether it pays financially to be ethical or not in making investment decisions. The debate as to whether there is anything to gain or lose by deciding to be ethical and socially responsible in making investment decisions is still ongoing. Several studies have found that there is no conclusive evidence as to whether the performances of socially responsible investments outperform those of conventional and vice versa.

Comparing portfolio and fund performance

Several studies in various places have analysed the performance of socially responsible investing (SRI) and conventional investing (CI) using different models and methodologies for measuring performance. Using the Carhart four-factor model, found that an approach where stocks with high SRI scores are bought while those with low SRI scores are sold off produced a positive abnormal performance of up to 8.7% per annum, suggesting that investors can achieve their ethical goals without hurting their financial performance. also using the Carhart four-factor model, noted an excess return of 7% for environmentally-friendly firms. However, using a similar approach found the performance of SRI stocks to be not statistically different from those of conventional stocks. In contrast, also using the Carhart four-factor model found a portfolio which included "sin stocks" (alcohol, tobacco, gaming) to be significantly outperforming similar comparable stocks, which indicates that investors in SRI stocks might be losing. However, after controlling for managerial skills, transaction costs and fees, found no outperformance between portfolios which include "sin" stocks and comparable SR portfolios. Some other studies have compared the performance of SRI funds with conventional funds. While some studies used only the capital asset pricing model to compare performance), others used multifactor models such as the Fama–French three-factor model and Carhart four-factor model. These studies found no statistically significant difference in performance between the SRI and conventional funds.

Comparing stock market index performance

Considering that difference in performance of funds may be due to portfolio selection/construction process and/or the ability of fund managers and not necessarily on the nature of investments themselves, some studies have compared the performance of stock market indices instead. Two of the pioneer studies compared the performance of the Domini 400 Social Index with the S&P 500. The Sharpe ratio and the capital asset pricing model were used to estimate Jensen's alpha for the comparison and no significant difference was found in the performance of the two indices. A follow-up study compared the performance of four SRI indices (Domini 400 Social Index, Calvert Social Index, Citizen's Index and Dow Jones Sustainability Indices US Index) with the S&P 500 index between 1990 and 2004 and found that returns on the SRI indices exceeded returns on S&P 500 even though they were not statistically significant. Others focused only on the US and on outside the US by studying the performance of 29 SRI indices globally. Using the capital asset pricing model to estimate Jensen's alpha as the performance indicator, no significant evidence of under/over performance was found. A comparison of the performance of SR indices with conventional indices on a global scale using marginal conditional stochastic dominance found there is "strong evidence that there is a financial price to be paid for socially responsible investing."

A more recent study showed that "improvements in CSR reputation enhance profits".

Disinvestment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinvestment

Disinvestment refers to the use of a concerted economic boycott to pressure a government, industry, or company towards a change in policy, or in the case of governments, even regime change. The term was first used in the 1980s, most commonly in the United States, to refer to the use of a concerted economic boycott designed to pressure the government of South Africa into abolishing its policy of apartheid. The term has also been applied to actions targeting Iran, Sudan, Northern Ireland, Myanmar, Israel, and China.

Examples

Industries

• Global Climate Coalition – Ford, General Motors, Texaco, Southern Company, Exxon, and other corporate members of the Global Climate Coalition – an industry group opposing the Kyoto Protocol – were the target of a national divestment campaign run by Ozone Action in 2000. According to The New York Times, when Ford Motor Company left the coalition, it was "the latest sign of divisions within heavy industry over how to respond to global warming". After that, between December, 1999 and early March, 2000, the GCC was deserted by Daimler-Chrysler, Texaco, the Southern Company and General Motors. The organization closed in 2002, or in their own words, 'deactivated'. People associated with the campaign were John Passacantando, who served as the executive director of Ozone Action, and Phil Radford, the then field director of the organization. Both men later served as the executive director of Greenpeace.
• Tobacco industry
• Arms trade
• Fossil fuels industry

Environment

Further information: Fossil fuel divestment

There is a movement to disinvest from coal, oil and gas companies. It is a social movement which urges everyone from individual investors to large endowed institutions to remove their investments (to divest) from publicly listed oil, gas and coal companies, with the intention of combating climate change by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, and holding the oil, gas and coal companies responsible for their role in climate change.

Founder of the movement Bill McKibben, a researcher and academic from University of Victoria, and creator of the webpage 350.org stated: “If it is wrong to wreck the climate, then it is wrong to profit from the wreckage. We believe […] organizations that serve the public good should divest from fossil fuels”

Companies

• Talisman Energy - because of its status as the main Western oil company in Sudan in the early 2000s.

Nations

Iran

Main article: Disinvestment from Iran

Eighteen American states have passed laws requiring the divestment of state pension funds from firms doing business with Iran.

South Africa

Main article: Disinvestment from South Africa

The most frequently-encountered method of "dis-investing" was to persuade state, county and municipal governments to sell their stock in companies which had a presence in South Africa, such shares having been previously placed in the portfolio of the state's, county's or city's pension fund. Several states and localities did pass legislation ordering the sale of such securities, most notably the city of San Francisco. An array of celebrities, including singer Paul Simon, actively supported the cause.

Many conservatives opposed the disinvestment campaign, accusing its advocates of hypocrisy for not also proposing that the same sanctions be leveled on either the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China. Ronald Reagan, who was the President of the United States during the time the disinvestment movement was at its peak, also opposed it, instead favoring a policy of "constructive engagement" with the Pretoria regime. Some offered as an alternative to disinvestment the so-called "Sullivan Principles", named after Reverend Leon Sullivan, an African-American clergyman who served on the Board of Directors of General Motors. These principles called for corporations doing business in South Africa to adhere to strict standards of non-discrimination in hiring and promotions, so as to set a positive example.

Northern Ireland

There was also a less well-publicized movement to apply the strategy of disinvestment to Northern Ireland, as some prominent Irish-American politicians sought to have state and local governments sell their stock in companies doing business in that part of the United Kingdom. This movement featured its own counterpart to the Sullivan Principles; known as the "MacBride Principles" (named for Nobel Peace Prize winner Seán MacBride), which called for American and other foreign companies to take the initiative in nondiscrimination against Roman Catholics by adopting policies resembling affirmative action. The effort to disinvest in Northern Ireland met with little success, but the United States Congress did pass (and then-President Bill Clinton signed) a law requiring American companies with interests there to implement most of the MacBride Principles in 1998.

Cuba

Though in place long before the term "disinvestment" was coined, the United States embargo against Cuba meets many of the criteria for designation as such — and a provision more closely paralleling the disinvestment strategy aimed at South Africa was added in 1996, when the United States Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act, which penalized owners of foreign businesses which invested in former American firms that had been nationalized by Fidel Castro's government after the Cuban revolution of 1959. The passage of this law was widely seen as a reprisal for an incident in which Cuban military aircraft shot down two private planes flown by Cuban exiles living in Florida, who were searching for Cubans attempting to escape to Miami.

Sudan

During the late 1990s and early 2000s several Christian groups in North America campaigned for disinvestment from Sudan because of the Muslim-dominated government's long conflict with the breakaway, mostly Christian region of Southern Sudan. One particular target of this campaign was the Canadian oil company, Talisman Energy which eventually left the country, and was supplanted by Chinese investors.

There is currently a growing movement to divest from those that do business with the Sudanese government responsible for genocide in Darfur. Prompted by the State of Illinois – the first government in the US to divest – scores of public and private-sector entities are now following suit. In New York City, Councilman Eric Gioia introduced a resolution to divest City pension funds from companies doing business with Sudan.

The divestment of assets implicated in funding the government of Sudan, in acknowledgment of acts of terrorism and genocide perpetrated in the Darfur conflict. In the United States, this divestment has taken place at the state level (including Illinois, which led the way, followed by New Jersey, Oregon, and Maine). It has also taken place at many North American university endowments, including Cornell University, Harvard University, Case Western Reserve University, Queen's University, Stanford University, Dartmouth College, Amherst College, Yale University, Brown University, the University of California, the University of Pennsylvania, Brandeis University, the University of Colorado, American University, University of Delaware, Emory University, and the University of Vermont.

The Sudan Divestment Task Force has organized a nationwide group which advocates a targeted divestment policy, to minimize any negative effects on Sudanese civilians while still placing financial pressure on the government. The so-called 'targeted divestment approach' generally permits investment in Sudan, and is thus radically different from the comprehensive divestment that ended apartheid in South Africa.

Under this approach, sponsored by State Senator Jacqueline Collins, public pensions are prohibited from investing in any corporation or private equity firm that conducts business in Sudan, unless authorized to do so by the U.S. Government.

Israel

Main article: Disinvestment from Israel

Russia

Main article: Disinvestment from Russia

Several companies, such as oil giants BP and Shell, have disinvested from Russia following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. TikTok, also as a result of the invasion, also no longer allows new posts to be published in Russian territory, and YouTube does not allow Russian-backed channels to be monetised on the platform.

China

Main article: Disinvestment from China

In January 2020, students at University of California, Los Angeles passed a resolution calling for divestment from China. In August 2020, Under Secretary of State Keith Krach called upon university administrators in the United States to divest their endowments from companies in China. In the letter, Krach cited an open letter released nationally in May 2020 by College Democrats and College Republicans that was written by the student-organized Athenai Institute, and numerous other organizations and individuals which called for the disclosure of all ties "between centers of higher learning and all Chinese state agencies and proxies".

In October 2021, students at The Catholic University of America unanimously passed a resolution, with the Athenai Institute calling upon their university administration to divest its endowment from companies complicit in the genocide of Uyghurs conducted by the Chinese government. This resulted in Catholic University committing to audit and divest its endowment, becoming the first university in the world to do so. According to Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, this action marked the beginning of the "Uyghur Genocide University Divestment Movement". Following this, the Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility at Yale University committed to examine potential investments in Chinese companies tied to human rights abuses. In January 2022, students at Georgetown University circulated an open letter calling for divestment from China. The letter was supported by a coalition of Georgetown's College Democrats, College Republicans, Muslim Student Association, Hong Kong Student Association, as well as individuals. Following this, the Georgetown University Student Association introduced and unanimously passed a resolution calling upon the university to divest its endowment. Similar action was taken by a coalition of students at the George Washington University in February 2022.

Others

Myanmar (formerly Burma) has also been the target of disinvestment campaigns (most notably the Massachusetts Burma Law initiated by the state of Massachusetts). Divestment campaigns have also been directed against Saudi Arabia due to allegations of "gender apartheid". The University of California, Riverside's Hillel chapter has a Saudi Divestment petition circulating as of 2007.

In 2007, several major international and Canadian oil companies threatened to withdraw investment from the province of Alberta because of a proposed increase in royalty rates.

Criticism

Some hold that divestment campaigns are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how stock markets work. John Silber, former president of Boston University, observed that while boycotting a company's products would actually affect their business, "once a stock issue has been made, the corporation doesn't care whether you sell it, burn it, or anything else, because they've already got all the money they're ever going to get from that stock. So they don't care."

Regarding the more specific case of South Africa, John Silber recalled:

...when the students were protesting the South African situation, I met with them, and they said BU must divest in General Motors and IBM. And I said, "Why should we do that? Is it immoral to own that stock?" Absolutely immoral to own it. And I said, "So then, we're supposed to sell it to somebody? We can't divest unless we sell it to somebody. And if we burn the stock, that just helps General Motors, because it reduces the amount of stock outstanding, so that can't be right. If we sell it to somebody, we have just gotten rid of our guilt in order to impose guilt on somebody else."

One criticism of divestment focuses on the belief that institutional selling of a certain stock lowers its market value. Therefore, the company's net worth becomes devalued and the owners of the company may lose substantial paper assets. In addition, institutional divestment may encourage other investors to sell their stocks for fear of lower prices, which in turn lowers prices even further. Finally, lower stock prices limits a corporation's ability to sell a portion of their stocks in order to raise funds to expand the business.

This assumption about the intent behind many divestment movements is often incorrect. Divestment executions are often forms of denouncement and delegitimization of an industry, such as in the fossil-fuel divestment movement. Negative public perception can lead to reform and changes in policy, both privately for the company and in the public sphere.