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Specialist in Asia Pacific, Japan, China, India and South East Asia and Global Emerging Market equities.

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Specialists in equity portfolios in Asia Pacific, emerging markets, global and sustainable investment strategies

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Our philosophy is very simple. We are constantly searching for high quality businesses and when we acquire them, we will work relentlessly with them to create long-term sustainable value through innovation, ESG-led and proactive asset management.

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Leader in systematic equities across market cap weighted indices, smart beta and active quantitative strategies

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Important Note Click to maximise

This Realindex site does not constitute an offer or invitation to subscribe for any interest in the yet to be launched fund(s) and that the information presented should not be relied upon because it is incomplete and may be subject to change in future.

Realindex Investments

Approach to Responsible Investment

Stewardship and ESG integration

As part of our stewardship responsibilities, Realindex excludes specific companies involved in controversial munitions and armaments across all of our portfolios. We also apply screens to exclude tobacco and other “ESG red flag” companies for certain clients and manage a portfolio to the MSCI ACWI Socially Responsible Index ex Fossil Fuels.  Further, we believe that voting on company resolutions is an important responsibility of any equity holder, and we vote on company resolutions utilising proxy research from CGI Glass Lewis, Ownership Matters and other research where relevant. Joanna Nash, Senior Quantitative Portfolio Manager, and Andrew Sinclair, Senior Quantitative Analyst are the Realindex ESG leads and are responsible for coordinating our approach to proxy voting.

ESG research has been and continues to be a strategic initiative for Realindex.  Given our focus on systematic investment strategies, the degree to which ESG is explicitly incorporated varies across strategies.  Across our accounting measures weighted portfolios, governance is considered indirectly through the quality component of our enhancements process.  Within our Australian smaller companies strategy, we have incorporated a specific governance factor into our overall enhancements score.  This factor penalises firms with below average governance and also includes a weighting to change in overall governance quality, to capture currently unfolding information, credit firms with improving governance and penalise those that are getting worse.  Other areas of ongoing research include low carbon strategies and ESG aware strategies.

We have an extensive database of ESG data and metrics licensed from third parties which we use in our research and in some cases as part of our investment process, or customised client solutions. As at 30 June 2018 these providers include:

  • CGI Glass Lewis – They are our preferred provider for proxy voting analysis and they provide specific recommendations which we follow in most, but not all, cases
  • MSCI – Carbon emissions data and governance metrics; our preferred provider for carbon, and for governance outside Australia
  • Ownership Matters – A specialist firm which provides governance scores for Australian firms, also proxy voting advice for Australian firms
  • Regnan – ESG data for Australian firms
  • RepRisk – ESG incidents data
  • Sustainalytics – ESG and incidents data; our preferred provider for Environmental & Social scores

ESG Research

ESG research has been and continues to be a strategic initiative for Realindex. We have an extensive database of ESG data and metrics licensed from third parties which we use in our research and in some cases as part of our investment process, or customised client solutions.

We have conducted a significant amount of ESG research, including:

  • Constructing and back-testing an ESG-tilted portfolio relative to the ASX 200 using a combination of ESG and quantitative alpha factors
  • Tilting various benchmark weights with the objective of maximising the reduction in carbon emissions
  • Investigating the cross-sectional stock performance across 96 key metrics provided by MSCI Governance Metrics in both global and Australian companies;
  • Using ESG scores to predict stock level volatility 12-months ahead
  • We have incorporated governance into our overall enhancements score within Australian smaller companies, penalising firms with below-average governance. We have also included a weighting towards  change in governance within this, to reflect currently unfolding information, and to upweight firms that are improving their governance and penalise those that are getting worse
  • Separately we have investigated underweighting firms which have had recent negative environmental or social incidents

Case studies

We believe that a strong commitment to stewardship is an essential component of a strong approach to responsible investment (RI), and that embedding RI into the core of our investment activities is in the best long-term interests of our clients. For more than a decade we have systematically and progressively improved our practices and processes across our investment capabilities globally.

Learn more through our interactive case studies map

Team Climate Change Statement

Realindex manages a variety of strategies including market cap index portfolios, value weighted funds and market cap aware active funds. Across all these funds, there are different climate related risks that impact the team’s portfolios.

Key climate-related risks in our team’s portfolio

How we identify these risks

How we address these risks

The targets and objectives we have set

Carbon footprint

For more information, see our Carbon Footprint explainer


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Proxy voting

The team believes that voting on company resolutions is an important responsibility of any equity holder and votes on company resolutions using the services of CGI Glass Lewis. The team votes in line with CGI Glass Lewis recommendations, which have been formulated to promote high standards of corporate governance. In certain circumstances the team may override CGI Glass Lewis' recommendations where they believe it is in their clients’ interest to do so. Due to the systematic nature of their investment approach, the team maintains a separate proxy voting policy which is available on our website.

Australian Equity

Proxy voting history by type of resolution

The table below contains the proxy voting history for the team by issue type. The chart provides the same information for FY2022.

Voting Independence 

The chart below shows the number of times the team have voted in each region.

Global Equity

Proxy voting history by type of resolution

The table below contains the proxy voting history for the team by issue type. The chart provides the same information for FY2022.

Voting Independence 

The chart below shows the number of times the team have voted in each region.

Proxy voting by region

The chart below shows the number of times the team voted in each region and the percentage of votes against management recommendations, against our proxy advisors' recommendation, or against both. The purpose of this table is to show the regional difference in voting patterns and governance concerns.

Proxy voting information is as at 31/12/2022
Source: First Sentier Investors / CGI Glass Lewis

Disclaimer

The commitments and targets set out on this website are current as of today’s date. They have been formulated by the relevant First Sentier Investors (FSI) investment team in accordance with either internally developed proprietary frameworks or are otherwise, based on the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change’s (IIGCC) Paris Aligned Investment Initiative framework. The commitments and targets are based on information and representations made to the relevant investment teams by portfolio companies (which may ultimately prove not be accurate), together with assumptions made by the relevant investment team in relation to future matters such as government policy implementation in ESG and other climate-related areas, enhanced future technology and the actions of portfolio companies (all of which are subject to change over time). As such, achievement of these commitments and targets set out on this website depend on the ongoing accuracy of such information and representations as well as the realisation of such future matters. FSI will report on progress made towards achieving these targets on an annual basis in its Climate Change Action Plan. The commitments and targets set out on this website are continuously reviewed by the relevant investment teams and subject to change without notice.