BNP Paribas Asset Management

Amid a growing chorus of stakeholders keen on sustainability – ranging from investors to increasingly environmentally and socially aware consumers – more and more entrepreneurs are exploring solutions that are actually sustainable and responsible.

Robotisering en automatisering veranderen in rap tempo de krachtverhoudingen binnen de wereldeconomie. Volgens senior portfoliomanager Siegfried Kok van BNP Paribas OBAM staan we aan de vooravond van een revolutie.

Not until the 10th out of Jean-Claude Juncker’s 11-page 2017 state-of-the-union speech to the European Parliament on 13 September did he mention the word Brexit. And, even then, only in very few words. But Juncker’s closing words, ‘on 30 March 2019, we will be a union of 27’, reflect a clear shift in terms of looking beyond Brexit negotiations.

Rapid demographic change, the desire to live in city centres, the rising cost of housing together with an inexorably changing urban environment have raised the profile of apartment dwelling since the near-collapse of the global financial system in 2008.

While palm oil producing plantations are not the sole cause of deforestation, they are a good place to start when it comes to taking action.

We believe recent M&A activity indicating the first major combinations of traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers with major online retailers in the US has strategic implications, not only for the US grocery industry, but across broader retail segments.

A number of global equity indices have reached historic highs in recent months. The European equity market has not done badly, but has lagged behind markets in other developed regions, notably the US. Today, however, Europe is back in investors’ good books.

European banks have frequently been in the headlines of the financial media this year. We have seen bank bailouts in Italy, mergers and acquisitions in Spain, large volumes of primary bank issuance as governments sold their stakes and the sector has remained a proxy for market sentiment on future European Central Bank (ECB) rate policy.

The performance of global listed real estate markets will be sensitive to how central banks behave over the next few months, in particular to movements in interest rates triggered by changing central bank monetary policy, especially in the US, the eurozone and Japan.

At Impax, BNP Paribas Asset Management’s partner specialising in environmental markets, we conduct our own proprietary research. This includes visiting the facilities of the companies in which we invest and meeting its managers.