LGC Investment Awards 2024

AXA Investment Managers

Our history of innovation in supporting clients’ sustainable goals continued in 2024 with the launch of a second Carbon Transition fund. These funds aim to reduce portfolio carbon emissions and achieve Net Zero by 2050 while providing a long-term income and capital gain. We continue to improve reporting standards to help clients achieve their sustainable goals and meet regulatory reporting requirements, along with providing greater transparency on our stewardship activities, portfolio carbon emissions and biodiversity footprint. We embed sustainability into every aspect of our business, holding ourselves to the same high standards we expect of companies that we invest in.

Gresham House

Gresham House is a specialist alternative asset manager, offering funds, direct investment and tailored opportunities, including co-investment, across a range of sustainable strategies. We manage £8.5bn of assets under management (AUM) as at 31 December 2023, split within the business between our Real Assets and Strategic Equity divisions.Our strategies seek to address key environmental and societal challenges by partnering with the smartest capital to make great investments that deliver long-term financial returns. Our ambition is to be the manager of choice for sustainable investment client solutions by 2030. Currently we have 20 LGPS clients across 31 mandates.

Guinness Global Investors

As the manager of the Guinness Sustainable Energy Fund, Guinness Global Investors has offered LGPS clients an opportunity for innovative equity exposure that seeks capital appreciation while investing in companies facilitating the energy transition. Through its ESG integration, exclusions, voting and engagement, the strategy exhibits strong credentials for the LGC Investment Awards sustainability manager. Guinness Global Investors’ innovative client reporting and support of the LGC Pension Insight Symposium demonstrates an understanding of client needs, while the Fund’s compelling long-term performance shows the value that Guinness Global Investors’ expertise can offer investors by investing in the energy transition.

Jupiter Asset Management

The Jupiter Global Sustainable Equity strategy takes a thoughtful and thorough approach to ESG integration, with a focus on materiality and relevance, including a keen awareness of how climate-related financial risk factor into company valuation. The result is a diverse portfolio with low commonality of holdings compared to peers. Our experienced team are recognised as leaders in their field and are active when it comes to collaboration with our partners in the industry. The ultimate focus is on achieving the best risk-adjusted returns for clients by investing in companies that are leading the transition to a more sustainable world.

Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners

Impact and sustainability are at the core of Quinbrook’s investment thesis with positive impact through job creation, biodiversity conservation and decarbonisation being fundamental characteristics of the investments made, exemplified by its UK focused strategy.QRIF is Quinbrook’s third managed fund and is strongly aligned with the Government’s goals of a decarbonised UK power system by 2035, improved energy security and the “Levelling Up” agenda. The Fund, which offers investors access to a holistic and differentiated approach to the energy transition, was marketed exclusively to UK institutional investors and attracted multiple new investors to Quinbrook from across the country.

T. Rowe Price

The increasing degradation of inland water and ocean ecosystems have created an urgent need for solutions. Blue bonds are becoming an innovative means to finance marine projects as well as for water resource management. Blue financing is an emerging area of sustainable finance, with growing interest from investors and issuers alike. Pioneers in this industry, we have worked with the IFC to develop the first Blue Bond Strategy to promote the Sustainable Blue Economy. In addition to protecting our water resources and oceans from various threats, our goal is to assist LGPS clients achieve their net zero targets.