Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institutions, such as insurance companies, pension funds, corporations, charities, educational establishments, or private investors, either directly via investment contracts/mandates or via collective investment schemes like mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or Real estate investment trusts.
BlackRock, Inc. is an American multinational investment company. It is the world's largest asset manager, with $10 trillion in assets under management as of December 31, 2023. Headquartered in New York City, BlackRock has 78 offices in 38 countries, and clients in 100 countries. BlackRock is the manager of the iShares group of exchange-traded funds, and along with The Vanguard Group and State Street, it is considered to be one of the Big Three index fund managers. Its Aladdin software keeps track of investment portfolios for many major financial institutions and its BlackRock Solutions division provides financial risk management services. The head of Aladdin is Sudhir Nair. As of 2023, BlackRock was ranked 229th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.
MSCI Inc. is an American finance company headquartered in New York City. MSCI is a global provider of equity, fixed income, real estate indices, multi-asset portfolio analysis tools, ESG and climate products. It operates the MSCI World, MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI) and MSCI Emerging Markets Indices among others.
The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is an institutional investor that manages several public and parapublic pension plans and insurance programs in Quebec. It was established in 1965 by an act of the National Assembly, under the government of Jean Lesage, as part of the Quiet Revolution, a period of social and political change in Quebec. It is the second-largest pension fund in Canada, after the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. It was created to manage the funds of the newly created Quebec Pension Plan, a public pension plan that aimed to provide financial security for Quebecers in retirement. The CDPQ’s mandate was to invest the funds prudently and profitably, while also contributing to Quebec’s economic development. As of December 31, 2023, CDPQ managed assets of C$434 billion, invested in Canada and elsewhere. CDPQ is headquartered in Quebec City at the Price building and has its main business office in Montreal at Édifice Jacques-Parizeau.
Socially responsible investing (SRI) is any investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social/environmental good. The areas of concern recognized by the SRI practitioners are sometimes summarized under the heading of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues: environment, social, and corporate governance. Impact investing is subset of SRI that is generally more proactive and focused on the conscious creation of social impact through investment. Eco-investing is SRI with a focus on environmentalism.
Robeco is an originally Dutch asset management firm, since 2013 part of Orix, founded in 1929 as the Rotterdamsch Beleggings Consortium. As of 2014, the company had €246 billion of assets under management. It was acquired in 2001 by the Rabobank Groep and sold in 2013 to ORIX Corporation.
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, operating as CPP Investments, is a Canadian Crown corporation established by way of the 1997 Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act to oversee and invest the funds contributed to and held by the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).
Preqin Ltd. is a privately held London-based investment data company that provides financial data and insight on the alternative assets market, as well as tools to support investment in alternatives. By the company's own definition, its data encompasses private capital and hedge funds, including fund, fund manager, investor, performance and deal information. The asset classes it covers are: private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, private debt, real estate, infrastructure, natural resources and secondaries.
Amundi is a French asset management company. With €2 trillion of assets under management (AUM) at the end of 2021, it is the largest asset manager in Europe and one of the 10 biggest investment managers in the world.
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG), is a set of aspects, including environmental issues, social issues and corporate governance that can be considered in investing. Investing with ESG considerations is sometimes referred to as responsible investing or, in more proactive cases, impact investing.
The European Association for Investors in Non-Listed Real Estate Vehicles (INREV), incorporated in 2002, is a non-profit association located in the Netherlands that provides services and education for investors interested in the European non-listed real estate fund market. .
Responsible Research Pte Ltd is an independent Environmental Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) research firm for global institutional asset owners and asset managers. Based in Singapore, Responsible Research analyses the ESG factors and regulatory landscapes that increasingly threaten portfolio returns in Asian markets.
Aquila Capital is an investment management company with headquarters in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded in 2001 by Roman Rosslenbroich and Dieter Rentsch. Aquila Capital focuses on real assets and sustainable investments. The company manages more than €14.7 billion for institutional investors and is among Europe’s leading investment companies in climate change mitigation.
Ardian is a France-based, independent private equity investment company, founded and managed by Dominique Senequier. It is one of the largest European-headquartered private equity funds. The company was originally set up by Dominique Senequier in 1996 as the AXA Group's private equity division, but later gained independence in 2013, and rebranded itself as Ardian. The name Ardian (ar・di・an) was inspired by an ancient European language in which 'hardjan' mean strength, durability, and boldness. Ardian manages assets worth US$150 billion in Europe, North America and Asia, and has fifteen offices. The firm offers a funds of funds, direct funds, infrastructure, private debt and real estate, and manages a direct portfolio of more than 150 companies. Its fund of funds segments owns stakes in over 1500 funds. Ardian's 880 investors include institutional investors, funds of funds, government agencies, sovereign funds, family offices, pension funds and insurance companies). The firm has been ranked one of the largest companies by amount raised in equity by Private Equity International, and was named "Company of the Year" 2013 by the readers of Private Equity International.
RepRisk AG is an environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) data science company based in Zurich, Switzerland, specializing in ESG and business-conduct risk research, and quantitative solutions.
Arabesque Partners is an Anglo-German investment management firm founded in 2013, with headquarters in London and a research hub in Frankfurt. The company offers a quantitative approach to sustainable investing.
ESG Quant is an investment strategy, developed by Arabesque Partners, which involves quantitative equity investing while utilizing ESG information, often referred to as "non-financial" information. ESG Quant strategies are implemented within systematic trading or quantitative trading approaches that leverage a large and growing collection of commercial ESG, alternative and non-profit or academic datasets. As such, there is no human judgment or discretionary buy-sell decision making; rather, “in a pure quant model the final decision to buy or sell is made by the model” or through the “utilization of an expert system that replicates previously captured actions of real traders.”
Sustainable finance is the set of financial regulations, standards, norms and products that pursue an environmental objective. It allows the financial system to connect with the economy and its populations by financing its agents while maintaining a growth objective. The long-standing concept was promoted with the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement, which stipulates that parties must make "finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development." In addition, sustainable finance had already a key role to play in the European Green Deal and in other EU International agreements, but since the COVID-19 pandemic its role is even more important.
The DWS Group commonly referred to as DWS, is a German asset management company. It previously operated as part of Deutsche Bank until 2018 where it became a separate entity through an initial public offering on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. It is currently headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany and is a constituent member of the SDAX index.
The Responsible Investment Brand Index (RIBI) is a scale to evaluate the global asset management industry on its ability to demonstrate its commitment to sustainable investment into their respective brands. The annual index was created in 2018 by Jean-Francois Hirschel and Markus Kramer.
