London-based Osmosis wins $4.5bn ESG mandate from Dutch pension fund
London-based asset manager Osmosis has won a $4.5bn sustainable investing mandate from a top Dutch pension fund looking to slash the environmental impact of its portfolio.
Pensioenfonds PGB, one of the ten biggest pension funds in the Netherlands, has picked the boutique investor to select sustainable firms that perform well in areas such as carbon emissions and water consumption.
The $4.5bn mandate marks one of the largest deals of its kind globally, which Osmosis chief and founding partner Ben Dear said was “a testament to the efficacy of our approach and the outcome of several years of collaboration”.
“Investors seeking to address the environmental risk in their portfolios to meet ever more pressing environmental reduction commitments are also cognisant that the active risk required to meet these goals should not lead to sub-optimal financial returns,” he added.
“Delivering immediate and significant environmental reductions while targeting better risk-adjusted returns, our core strategies enable our clients to meet the long-term funding requirements of their customers through a highly diversified, cost-efficient, and liquid portfolio that encourages mainstream adoption of sustainable investing,” he said.
The fresh mandate will double Osmosis’s assets under management and comes after the firm bucked a slump among London’s asset managers last year as investors fled the market amid extreme volatility.
The firm, which focuses solely on the environmental aspect of ESG investing, said it had posted record inflows in 2022 with assets now topping $9bn.
It manages similar ESG strategies for a number of other international pension funds including Oxford University’s endowment fund, Australia’s Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation and the Danish Pension PKA.