About the Managers

JPMorgan Asset Management Ethical Portfolio

A diversified portfolio of 60 to 70 stocks, driven by a strong philosophy which seeks to exploit market inefficiencies.

Fund Manager — Howard Williams
JPMorgan Asset Management (JPMAM) have a respected, well organised and well resourced team of global sector analysts located in London and groups of regional analysts located around the globe. The team is backed by an organisation that provides support in terms of systems, people and management.

The resources are organised in such a way that the ethical portfolio managed solely for Skandia Investment Management receives a high level of management.

For stock selection, Howard Williams applies an ethical overlay to JPMAM's mainstream stock recommendations.

The analysts use a proprietary quantitative ranking tool for ideas generation, which favours stocks with momentum and value. Shares are scored between one and five depending on the strengths exhibited for the various characteristics.

Whereas a typical ethical fund manager will tend to have a persistent emphasis towards smaller companies and growth stocks, JPMAM seeks to run a more balanced approach across company sizes, countries and investment styles. This philosophy ensures a balanced portfolio with good growth and value characteristics.

Aegon Ethical Equity Fund

A diversified portfolio of 80 to 100 securities resulting from a pragmatic philosophy focusing on three key disciplines - leadership, teamwork and communications.

Fund Manager — Audrey Ryan
Aegon believes that teamwork is the best way to achieve its goals. Strong leadership, combined with the empowerment of individuals, is the key to success. Healthy debate is encouraged with themes and ideas challenged. There is buy-in from the whole team to any course of action, which ensures consistency.

Ryan's philosophy is based on the twin beliefs that investment research must be alive to the next big theme and that valuation is key - focusing on company fundamentals, valuation measures and technical drivers. Not only is there no distinct style bias, the process also amalgamates top-down macro-economic work with bottom-up stock picking.

The Ethical Investment Research Service (EIRIS) provides the ethical screening service for the fund and Aegon obtains advice from EIRIS where companies are assessed for positive attitudes towards their workforce, the communities in which they do business and the ways in which they protect the natural environment.

Ryan constructs her portfolio by bringing together mainstream equity views and the ethically screened stock list. She also brings with her previous mainstream experience in smaller companies. Aegon takes its corporate responsibilities seriously and is a more active shareholder than many ethical fund managers.

Norwich UK Ethical Fund (Aviva Investors)

A top-down, Growth At a Reasonable Price (GARP) philosophy results in a 50 to 70 stock portfolio.

Fund Manager — Peter Michaelis
Aviva Investors are clearly committed to Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) with over 13 years in managing SRI funds and with one of the largest and most experienced teams in the industry. The team believe that SRI will help alleviate poverty and environmental destruction and at the same time deliver above average investment returns.

The process is built around rating companies on their ability to improve or detract from society (eg those that deliver better quality of life or reduce the strains on global ecology). They believe they will be able to select companies that will in the long run deliver better than average impacts on society and better than average investment returns.

The process starts with a thematic analysis. This involves reviewing key ethical themes that will lead to certain industries and stocks becoming winners or losers. They focus on identifying the social and environmental factors that will have the greatest impact at the financial level for the company. These are then rated on 'business sustainability' and 'visions and strategy' in what they call their sustainable ratings matrix. A portfolio of 50 to 70 stocks is then constructed from the positive stock selection that results.

 

Impax Environmental Markets (Ireland) Fund

The fund was launched to enable investors to benefit from rapid and sustained growth anticipated for cleaner and more efficient delivery of basic services of energy, water and waste.

Fund Managers — Bruce Jenkins-Jones and Ian Simm
Investments are made predominantly in quoted companies which provide, utilise, implement or advise upon technology-based systems, products or services in Environmental Markets, particularly those of alternative energy and energy efficiency, water treatment and pollution control, and waste technology and resource management.

Companies are selected on the basis of their potential for generating capital growth. While the strength of the technology is an important criterion in the selection of the stocks, the team believes in rigorous fundamental analysis and focus on five attributes when choosing portfolio investments: compelling business proposition based on proven technology, management quality, identification of new growth markets, development of global environmental and energy policies and regulations, and finally, valuation anomalies and sector volatility. Much of the research is undertaken in house, but with the increasing number of brokers covering these companies, external research is also used.

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Skandia Investment Group is a trading name of Skandia Investment Management Limited. Skandia Investment Management Limited is registered in England & Wales under number 4227837. Registered Office at Skandia House, Portland Terrace, Southampton SO14 7EJ, United Kingdom. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority with FSA register number 208543, VAT number 386 1301 59.