Co-founders, Al Gore and David Blood, had a vision to position ‘sustainable investing’ as a mainstream investment option aiming to deliver superior investment returns over the long-term.
Generation Investment Management LLP (‘Generation’) was established in 2004 and manages approximately US $1 billion. Al Gore is the Chairman of Generation and David Blood is the Managing Partner.
Sustainable investing is fundamentally different to ethical or socially responsible investing. Generation’s investment approach is based on the idea that sustainability factors - economic, health, environment, social and governance - will ultimately drive a company’s share price over the long-term. Generation invests in the companies whose securities are attractively priced, with strong management teams that they believe best understand and respond to these factors and have the potential to out-perform over the long-term.
- True integration of sustainability and fundamental equities’ analysis
Generation is one of a very short list of investment managers from around the world that has integrated sustainability research and fundamental equity analysis into the one investment process.
- Excellent investment credentials
Generation’s team of investment analysts and portfolio managers have very strong investment credentials. David Blood was the former global CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Chief Investment Officer, Mark Ferguson has more than 13 years investment experience gained from some of the world’s leading investment managers.
Generation’s investment capability has also been highly rated by leading investment consulting firm, Mercer.
- Excellent sustainability credentials
Al Gore is one of the world’s most respected sustainability advocates. Generation's Advisory Board, chaired by Al Gore, consists of some of the world’s pre-eminent economic, political and environmental thinkers. The Advisory Board meets twice annually and assists the Generation investment team in understanding long-term sustainability themes that feed into their investment decision-making process.
- High conviction investing
Generation will only invest when there is high conviction in the company, and they believe that a concentrated stock portfolio (of between 25 to 60 companies) provides the potential to gain the most from their intensive research process.
- Client alignment
Generation is privately owned with 15 of the 26 employees having a stake in the company. In addition, a preference for performance fees coupled with significant employee investment in the firm’s funds aligns the Generation team’s interest with investors.
| Objective: | To deliver superior investment performance by taking a long-term investment view and integrating sustainability research within a rigorous fundamental equity analysis framework. |
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| Strategy: | The fund’s strategy is to invest in high-quality businesses whose securities are attractively priced, with strong management teams that are capable of delivering superior long-term returns. A crucial element of this sustainable investing strategy is to select companies that demonstrate practices and processes that will sustain their profits in a changing, challenging environment. Sustainable investing is the explicit recognition that economic, health, environmental, social and governance factors directly affect long-term business profitability. The fund will invest in anywhere between 25 and 60 companies. Whilst hedging may be used to manage currency exposures against the relevant benchmark (MSCI World ex Australia Index (AUD)), overall currency exposure will not be hedged back into Australian dollars. |
| Minimum suggested investment timeframe: | 5 to 7 years |
| Performance*: | There are currently no past performance figures available, because the Generation Global Sustainability Fund is a new fund available to Australian investors from 3 September 2007. However, Generation’s investment managers have been investing in global equities since February 2005. In that time, Generation has been managing other global portfolios that have outperformed the relevant benchmarks since inception. |
Information on Generation’s investment process and stock stories from the fund are also available.
This is general information only and does not take into account your individual objectives, financial situation or needs. You should assess whether the information is appropriate for you and consider talking to a financial adviser before making an investment decision. The Generation Global Sustainability Fund is available through FirstChoice and is issued by Colonial First State Investments Limited ABN 98 002 348 352, AFSL 232468. Generation Investment Management LLP is the investment manager for the fund. The relevant Product Disclosure Statements (PDSs) describing this fund are available from Colonial First State.
