Our “Buy & Care®” investment strategy
Despite the economic and social upheavals, the pandemic has had a positive collateral effect on sustainable finance by raising investor awareness. Our selection process identifies quality companies active in attractive end markets, with sound governance and sustainable competitive advantages. It integrates the concepts of environmental, social and governance impact. For many years, blue-chip companies have understood that operational and legal sustainability risks must be integrated into all their processes.
At the same time, we favour companies that develop business models seizing relevant opportunities related to climate, demographic change and digitalisation, while creating positive externalities.We are convinced that this awareness among governments, businesses, consumers and investors is not a fad, and we have been preparing for it for more than 15 years. Indeed, as part of our Buy & Care® strategy, we have conducted more than 850 engagement meetings since 2006 with the aim of making companies more transparent and proactive on sustainability issues. These meetings allow us to broaden our understanding of the companies in which we invest by considering them from a broader perspective.
The three founding principles of the Buy & Care® strategy have proven to be reliable over the long term:
- Active Portfolio Management
We select companies that are perfectly positioned to participate in major secular trends and assess their ability to transform sustainable development issues into competitive advantages. - Active Voting & Stewardship
We are involved with companies and actively vote at general meetings. We thus collect valuable information on the quality of their corporate governance. - Active Engagement & Impact
We regularly exchange with the management teams. We identify challenges and offer concrete recommendations. Finally, we measure the additional impact of our proposals.
This demanding and active approach promotes a better integration of sustainability into the companies’ business model and encourages them to incorporate sustainable development objectives into their business model.
The principles of the “Buy & Care® ” strategy apply to all our asset classes: equities, bonds and fund selection.