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Quarterly Client Update: First Quarter 2024
We provide regular strategy updates including portfolio changes and proxy voting, and links to our investment rationales, latest articles, statements, webcasts and videos which explore our thinking on sustainable investment, including the challenges and issues we grapple with in our search for high-quality companies.
Use the links to quickly navigate the report:
Collaborative engagement update: Tackling conflict mineral content in the semiconductor supply chain
Since our previous quarterly update, in which we explained our efforts to build a strong relationship with the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI), we were delighted to become the inaugural member of the RMI Investor Network in February.1
Working alongside the RMI, we plan to develop this working group and connect both fellow investors and companies to build consensus around the need for the adoption of more effective due diligence frameworks across supply chains. We believe membership of the network will offer investors a deeper understanding of mineral supply chains and greater engagement credibility. Membership should enrich engagements and help to emphasise the importance of mineral traceability to company leaders.
We are aware there is much still to be done in this space, but we look forward to continuing our collaboration with supporters and the RMI, and hope to see further progress in the coming months.
Industry initiative update: Future Asset
The aim of Future Asset is ’to inform girls in Scottish schools about the investment management industry, enthuse them about careers in the sector, and widen the talent pipeline to improve diversity in the industry.’
Stewart Investors founded Future Asset in 2017 and has supported it both financially and through involvement of our people since then. So far, Future Asset has engaged with over 1,800 girl students from over 220 schools in Scotland.
Their annual Growing Future Assets Investment Competition enables girls in Scottish schools to experience the role of an Investment Manager. In the first year of competition in 2020, there were 17 teams from 13 schools and 71 girls registered. In 2023/24 the participation has grown to 158 teams from 84 schools and 728 girls registered.
In the 2023/24 competition, investment team members Lorna Logan and Sarah Sheard were team mentors and Lorna was a judge in the Senior competition, presenting the winners’ award to the team from Preston Lodge High School in East Lothian. Many congratulations to them and to the Junior competition winners from Calderside Academy in South Lanarkshire, and everyone who took part.
We were delighted to be part of the competition and to encourage high school girls in Scotland to look at the world of investment and consider the industry for possible future careers.
Global Emerging Markets Sustainability Strategy 15th anniversary
This February marked the fifteenth anniversary of Stewart Investors’ Global Emerging Markets Sustainability strategy.
Fifteen years ago, emerging markets investing was synonymous with resources, banks and telecoms. The most important companies were state-owned giants like Vale (Brazil), Gazprom (Russia), and China Mobile. There were relatively few genuinely innovative or globally competitive companies outside of materials extraction.
There has been a tremendous change in this regard. Emerging markets are now home to a raft of the world’s leading companies in fields as diverse as semiconductors, renewable energy technologies, software as a service, healthcare supplies, fintech and e-commerce.
Looking forward on an individual company basis, the case for investing in emerging markets has never been stronger. The investment universe contains more quality companies than ever before and over the long term, this makes us very excited for what the next fifteen years can deliver in emerging markets.
Event update: Singapore Investment Forum
In March we hosted the first Stewart Investors Investment Forum in Singapore. It was a huge success, drawing on Stewart Investors’ 30-year track record and the expertise of our special guest speakers to tackle some of the critical questions and misconceptions surrounding sustainable investing.
Footnotes
1 Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) Investor Network, launched in February 2024, RMI Investor Network (responsiblemineralsinitiative.org)
