CASE STUDY: Wellington Management - Case Study - Fund Assessment

After having both the Global Impact Fund and Global Impact Bond Fund assessed, Louise Kooy-Henckel, Investment Director at Wellington Management, describes the learnings from the Phenix Capital Group's Impact Fund Assessment.

WHY IS PHENIX IMPACT FUND ASSESSMENT NEEDED?

The Phenix Impact Fund Assessment is much more than just a label; it is an extensive, in-depth framework. The assessment gives asset owners a thorough picture of the measures a fund – whether private or public – has put in place to achieve a positive impact and help their portfolio companies to improve their sustainable business practices. We feel that the assessment, which is specifically designed for impact investing, very much reflects our multi-dimensional research and our efforts to make our impact funds outstanding.  

FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF AN ASSET MANAGER HOW DOES PHENIX IMPACT FUND ASSESSMENT HELP YOU?

The Phenix Impact Fund Assessment touched on several topics that have been of high relevance for us in discussions with potential investors and portfolio companies during the last year. Phenix’s perspective on those topics helped us to understand what best demonstrates leading practices in the market today and which direction the industry will potentially evolve in, for example regarding impact reporting and auditing. We also used Phenix as a sounding board for several topics where we are enhancing our own practices.  

HOW CAN THE PHENIX IMPACT FUND ASSESSMENT ADD VALUE TO THE ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN ASSET MANAGER AND ASSET OWNER?

We are excited that we can share the Phenix Impact Fund Assessment report freely with any third party we like, without them subscribing to the Phenix Capital Group's Impact Funds Database. We will include the report, where relevant, in our available fund materials, and we look forward to the asset owners’ feedback. We expect the report to generate some good discussions with asset owners, allowing them to ask more informed questions of their asset manager. But they should bear in mind that private and public impact funds are assessed on the same continuous scale.  

WHAT ACTIONS HAVE YOU MADE AS A RESULT OF THE PHENIX IMPACT FUND ASSESSMENT?  

The Phenix Impact Fund Assessment made clear that we need to improve how asset owners can access all the information and tools we have available to help them further their understanding of impact investing and our impact approaches. The Phenix Capital team has done a great job pulling it all together from the various sources, and we will work on creating a more cohesive platform for materials going forward. The discussions have also helped us to understand how we can articulate our fund objective in more detail.  

*For professional investors only. Any views expressed are those of the author(s), are based on available information and are subject to change without notice. Individual portfolio management teams may hold different views and may make different investment decisions for different clients.