Corporate engagement to discover and sometimes influence a company’s long term strategy to ESG is gaining currency amongst institutional investors on a global scale. However, ESG engagement remains less common among fixed income investors, whose contractual rights are largely limited to attending bond road shows and seeking to influence the terms formalised within a bond covenant.
As important lenders of capital, fixed income investors can exert significant influence over issuers’ disclosure and risk management practices that directly relate to the accuracy of their investment analysis and overall risk adjusted returns. Similarly, companies are increasingly attuned to their creditors’ interests despite their limited legal rights as their need of debt financing is high.
In this webinar, the PRI, Hermes Investment Management and M&G mark the launch of PRI’s fixed income engagement case study series - the first major output of a PRI project to explore and clarify what it means for fixed income investors to fulfil their commitment to the second of the six Principles “We will be active owners and incorporate ESG issues into our ownership policies and practices”, with contributions by seven PRI signatories – PIMCO, Breckinridge Capital Advisors, Hermes Investment Management, M&G, BNP Paribas Asset Management, MN, and QIC covering fixed income engagement practices in US, UK, France, Netherlands, and Australia.
