Investment Officer Netherlands

Once seen as compliance or ideology, ESG is becoming part of ordinary risk management. Interviews with asset owners, managers and analysts in Amsterdam, the UK and the Netherlands show how sustainability is increasingly embedded in long term investment strategies.

Amundi and BNP Paribas pursue scale and expertise through mergers, but integration challenges create uncertainty over long-term benefits for investors.

It is March 2020 and Italy is in serious trouble. Italian long-term interest rates are rising rapidly, and the spreads with other eurozone countries are widening.

The groundbreaking acquisition of AXA Investment Managers by BNP Paribas is becoming increasingly concrete on the ground. In Brussels, AXA IM Benelux is being dissolved after nearly thirty years. The branch in Amsterdam will also disappear.

The United Kingdom’s new ESG fund labels have struggled to gain traction. As Brussels prepares an overhaul of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), a senior Morningstar expert warns Europe not to copy London’s model.

Government bonds from countries that score high on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have outperformed the global market-weighted bond index over the past three years.

For decades, it was an iron law for investors: in the long run, the stock market follows economic growth. A thriving economy translated into rising corporate profits and thus higher share prices. But anyone who has watched the past thirty years closely senses a growing friction with this old wisdom.