Sustainability
Responsible Investments
Adrigo invests in securities according to a well-defined investment process, which includes specific ESG considerations. The portfolio managers determine whether an investment is compliant with our exclusion criteria and international norms, standards and underlying conventions.
Negative exclusion
We have decided to exclude certain sectors we do not believe offer attractive prospects of long-term returns, because of the negative social and environmental impact of these sectors, and the significant cost they generate for society. The criteria are confirmed upon investment in a new company and exclusion thresholds are reviewed annually in conjunction with reconfirming all holdings are compliant with the exclusion criteria. Adrigo exclude:
• Companies in the tobacco industry
• Commercial gambling companies
• Adult entertainment companies
• Companies in strategic military sales and production of firearms or arms ammunition. Moreover, no investment shall be made in any company involved in production, sale or distribution of inhumane weapons such as cluster munitions, anti-personnel landmines, nuclear weapons and ABC- weapons.
Norm-based analysis and engagement approach
Companies are monitored to ensure their compliance with international norms, standards, and guidelines on human and labor rights, environmental aspects and corruption. Rather than automatically divesting companies with reported allegations, Adrigo has decided to use the screening results and conclusions as an input for any decision to initiate an engagement dialogue with the company, either on our own or together with other investors, in order to suggest and encourage that the company responds to and, if needed, improves on the specific issue. An engaged and constructive dialogue will more often lead to convincing the company to initiate positive change rather than simply exiting the investment. We are, however, upon severe and systematic breaches or where active shareholder engagement is deemed to have limited effect — as a final resort — either ready to refrain from investing or exit our holding.
ESG integration
Our fundamental bottom-up research process addresses and integrates investment risk and opportunities associated with material environmental, social and corporate governance factors.
We believe that companies able to identify material sustainability factors for their business, either risks or opportunities, and address them appropriately will outperform the ones which fail to do so. Upon new investment, we identify the most important ESG risks through a proprietary red flags analysis, covering topics such as quality of ownership, management, audit, environmental and social controversies. We monitor these risks continuously through dialogue with the management of our portfolio holdings and various stakeholders.