SAMPLE THIRD-PARTY RATINGS AND UNDERLYING CONCERNS
Issuer
Third-party Rating Third-party Rating Issue
Top-down assumptions and stale information: Did not take business mix differences into account in peer relative evaluation of company, in addition to focusing on a 100-year-old issue that is no longer relevant to current mix.
Paint company
BBB
Generic assumptions: Regarding reduced employee morale simply based on acquisitions by the company.
E-commerce company
BB
Generic assumptions: Concerns around labor management issues suggesting operational risks while engagement with company suggested otherwise. Missed information: Concerns around lack of risk management experience in audit committee because of scraping bios, instead of a detailed review of skills and experience matrix provided by company in its proxy report. Lack of disclosure: Relatively new public company with limited disclosure on sustainability issues, which doesn’t necessarily imply poor business practices.
Airline company
BB
Industrials company
BBB
Industrials company
BBB
Source: Neuberger Berman. Represent examples of issues identified in the process of our company research and due diligence.
ACTIVE ESG STRATEGIES HAVE HISTORICALLY BEEN MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN PASSIVE OVER MARKET CYCLES Percentage of time in which active ESG strategies outperform the passive ESG index after fees September 2010 – September 2021. Rolling Three-Year Monthly Returns.
100%
86%
80%
57%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Global Equity
Global Fixed Income
Source: Morningstar. For illustrative and discussion purposes only. Morningstar category net average annualized return covering 98 (rolling three-year returns) time periods (September 2010 through September 2021). Weighted averages are based on the number of Sustainable Investment - Overall labeled ETFs, passively managed open-end U.S.-domiciled funds and actively managed open-end U.S.-domiciled funds with three-year track records as of September 30, 2021, including funds that have been liquidated. Performance is based on funds’ oldest share class and compared to the MSCI World ESG Leaders Index for Equity, Bloomberg Barclays MSCI Global Aggregate Sustainable for Fixed Income. Morningstar defines “Sustainable Investment” as a fund that explicitly indicates any kind of sustainability, impact or ESG strategy in their prospectus or offering documents. The U.S. registered investment companies (ETFs, mutual funds) are used as the source of the analysis due to the consistency of their performance calculation, uniformity in the performance presentation, regulatory oversight and transparency of their investment strategy, along with the objectivity of the Morningstar categorizations. Please note that there are differences between separate account strategies and mutual funds, and each has their own separate and distinct peer universe. Investing entails risks, including possible loss of principal. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
2021 ESG ANNUAL REPORT
31
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker