Quarterly Client Update: First Quarter 2025

Industry initiative update: Future Asset’s ‘Growing Future Assets Investment Competition’

Supported by Stewart Investors since its founding in 2017, Future Asset is an initiative with a long-term mission to enhance inclusion in the financial industry in Scotland by improving gender diversity and breaking down existing stereotypes and barriers.

As part of this initiative, Future Asset hosts an annual Growing Future Assets Investment Competition. The competition allows girls in Scottish schools to experience the role of an investment analyst by working with investment professionals over a 10-week period to pitch a company with investment potential.

In its inaugural year in 2020, the competition featured 17 teams from 13 schools, with 71 girls participating. In the recent 2025 competition there were 209 teams from 100 schools, with over 900 girls registered. Our investment team members, Lorna Logan and Sarah Sheard were coaches and judges for the competition.

Congratulations to all participants, especially the junior winners from Mearns Castle High School near Glasgow and the senior winners from Fortrose Academy in the Scottish Highlands. Special mention to Marr College from Troon, coached by Lorna, who won the senior category for Best ESG pitch of the year.

We are thrilled to support this competition and inspire high school girls in Scotland to explore the investment world and consider careers in the industry.

To find out more about Future Asset, the competition and the ongoing opportunities they provide please follow them here - Future Asset on LinkedIn.

Human Development Pillars update

We first showed how our investee companies align with our 10 human development pillars in the third quarter of 2021 and we have been disclosing company assessments on Portfolio Explorer since that time. The pillars serve as the reference framework for assessing how companies contribute to positive social outcomes. All investee companies should contribute in a direct or enabling way to at least one of the pillars. 

Updated human development pillars

In 2024, we reviewed our human development pillars. The result was some minor adjustments to how we will evaluate, disclose, and report on how our companies align with them. Our aim is to provide better balance across the categories, provide clearer distinction between some of the previous pillars that were perhaps too broad, and highlight solutions that could stand out more effectively in their own dedicated pillars. We now have 12 pillars, organised within the same four overarching categories.