Aegon Asset Management Global Equity Fund given Sustainable refresh

Aegon Asset Management’s Global Equity Fund is transitioning its investment policy to become the Aegon Sustainable Equity Fund following investor demand.

The change to the UK-domiciled fund follows the success of its existing Dublin-domiciled fund, the Aegon Global Sustainable Equity Fund (GSEF) and investor demand for an onshore equivalent.

The move will see the fund adopt the same sustainable investment philosophy and criteria as the offshore variant and the name will change to the Aegon Sustainable Equity Fund with effect from 1 June 2021.

As well as following the same strategy as GSEF, the Aegon Sustainable Equity Fund will also have the same co-managers, Andrei Kiselev and Malcolm McPartlin. Kiselev and McPartlin replace Mike Nicol and Euan Weir who remain an integral part of Aegon AM’s equities team.

Kiselev and McPartlin are supported by Aegon AM’s wider equity team, who between them have a long and deep history of managing ESG-themed funds. They also work closely with a 14-strong team of Responsible Investing and ESG specialists across the group.

The Aegon Sustainable Equity Fund, which originally launched in 1987, will remain a concentrated, growth-focused global equity portfolio, which is unconstrained in terms of geographical and sector allocations.

Whilst the consideration of ESG factors in the investment process has been a part of the strategy for some time, the change formally introduces a small number of sustainability-based exclusions to the investment universe and also requires each security that is proposed for the strategy to be analysed from a sustainability perspective by the Aegon AM Responsible Investing team. Should any security be deemed by the Responsible Investing team to have unsuitable sustainability credentials, it becomes uninvestable for the Fund. 

Stephen Jones, Global CIO Equities at Aegon Asset Management said: “We have seen strong demand for our responsible investment products and the update to our Global Equity Fund is borne out of client demand for a UK domiciled version of our Dublin-registered fund.”

Aegon AM has a long history of managing responsible investment strategies, with its first fund launched over 30 years ago. The company manages €213 billion globally in specialist responsible investment portfolios (as at 31 December 2020).