Winnersrationale

When Asian Private Banker awarded Fidelity International the accolade of House of the Year – ESG at the 2022 Asset Management Awards for Excellence, the judging panel lauded the investment group for treating sustainability “as part of its DNA”.

For the 2023 awards programme, the asset manager’s focus on ESG and sustainable investing has only become sharper. Under the guidance of Jenn-Hui Tan, global head of stewardship and sustainable investing, Fidelity International has bolstered its offering over the last 12 months in ways ranging from personnel, to investment frameworks and analysis, to product choice.

Take Asia, for example, where Fidelity International has tripled the number of products available under its ‘Sustainable Family’ of funds over the last 12 months or so. In Hong Kong, the group offered 15 funds in 2022, compared to five in 2021. In Singapore, the number has gone from six in 2020.

These products — covering the gamut from climate and water to demographics and healthcare — have a minimum 70% of assets invested in companies with sustainable characteristics and up to 30% in those with improving sustainable indicators. All of these funds are classified under Article 8 of the European Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) framework.

In addition to these funds, Fidelity International has scaled up sustainable strategies for private markets, a business that was launched in 2021.

Importantly, Fidelity International in 2022 enhanced the scope and granularity with which it embeds ESG into its day-to-day investment processes. Its internal Sustainability Ratings framework, launched in 2019, has been expanded in breadth and depth to better take into account more qualitative, forward-looking factors measuring the impact of a company’s operations on the environment.

On the stewardship and engagement front, it has been all systems go. Fidelity International has increased the number of investee companies with which it engages by close to 50%, and is more and more voting against management over sustainability and ESG issues. High profile engagements in the region have included Samsung Electronics, particularly on issues of executive remuneration.

During the period under consideration, Fidelity International also took concrete steps to bulk up its dedicated team of investing specialists by 12 to more than 30. Some of the notable hires during the year include: Paul Milon, who joined from BNP Paribas Asset Management in August to become director, sustainable investing; Ellie Tang from New World Development, equally as director, sustainable investing; and Tina Chang, formerly with BlackRock, who was named associate director, sustainable investing.

Together, all of these executives are tasked with maintaining the policies, standards and frameworks that govern Fidelity International’s approach to ESG and sustainability, as well as developing the tools to ingrain ESG into the investment processes.

For these reasons and more, Fidelity International wins House of the Year – ESG in Asian Private Banker’s 2023 Asset Management Awards for Excellence.