Institutional investors tend to behave like sheep, and the sheepdogs that have chased them around in recent years have worn “ESG” tags on their collars. The letters refer to environmental, social and governance concerns, which in many cases seem to have overtaken making money as investors’ primary focus. As with most of these trends, the underlying intention is good, but the lucrative explosion of ESG funds — more than 360 were launched in Europe alone last year, according to data provider Morningstar — is leading to box-ticking and not a little confusion. It was amusing to see the 20 or so ESG funds that had bought into the fast-fashion retailer Boohoo clutch their pearls and dump the stock after this newspaper reported allegations of illegally

Source: The Times August 08, 2020 23:00 UTC