11:15 - 13:00

Herta Von Stiegel (United Kingdom)
Founder and Chief Executive Officer - Ariya Capital LLP

Tatjana Greil Castro (United Kingdom)
Managing Director - Muzinich & Co. Ltd.

Balancing Risk and Reward Sustainably

Muzinich is a traditional asset management firm that recognize how sustainability factors directly affect long-term business profitability. Tatjana will present a way of integrating sustainability research into a rigorous traditional bottom up investment process in order to deliver superior risk-adjusted results in a corporate bond portfolio.

Christopher Greenwald (Switzerland )
Head of Sustainability Application and Operations - SAM Sustainability Asset Management

ESG and Credit Risk

While numerous studies have examined the relationship between ESG data and information and equity price returns, relatively little research has explored the relationship between ESG performance and credit risk. Given the often-cited link between ESG performance and management quality, one would expect a relationship to exist between companies with strong ESG performance and the reduction of the risk profile of a company, which should in turn be reflected in metrics measuring the credit risk of a company. This presentation will examine the relationship between ESG performance and credit risk by considering the relationship between ESG performance and quantitative measures of credit risk. By integrating the historical data of CDS spreads taken from Thomson Reuters' CreditViews together with the ESG scores of ASSET4, I will examine to what extent these two factors are negatively correlated. I will also consider the relationship that may exist between ESG scores and the incidence of credit downgrades. By examining the relationship between ESG performance and quantitative measures of credit risk, I will provide a concrete demonstration of the importance of ESG data in considering a company's risk profile and therefore in pursuing an effective fixed-income investment strategy.

Willem Appel (The Netherlands)
Chief Executive Officer - Roodhals Capital B.V.

Sustainable Credit - The Missing Link

The markets for corporate credit has not given due notice to opportunities in sustainable development. Or perhaps many sustainable development propositions, such as companies in alternative energy, water and clean technologies have not yet proved bankable in the credit markets. Yet, such companies can ill afford to lack this source of capital. Post crisis, sustainable credit stands to become a fast-developing opportunity, deserving of an allocation in the sustainable investor's portfolio.

Diederik Timmer (The Netherlands)
Managing Director - Sustainalytics

An Innovative Approach To Fixed Income