Welcome!

Posted on 02/07/2011 by Kotagiri| Leave a comment

Welcome to PositiveInvestor.org!

You have found a website which exists for people who want to invest money in financial products which are hopefully not only going to make them money, but also have a positive impact on the world. If you are interested in investing your money in a more ethically, environmentally sustainable way, then this is the place for you. You are very welcome here!

Unlike other websites relating to ethical investing, we’re not here to make money. We aren’t brokers and we don’t ask for any subscription or sponsorship or donations. We just want to be a place where people who care about investing, and the impact their investments are having on the world, can meet other people who share a similar view. There are plenty of other ethical investment websites out there, and plenty of financial advisers. We recommend you speak to one of them before actually making any investment decisions. Feel free to just use this site as a hub from which you can start your research.

You may wish to sign up to our newsletter. We will let you know when we post any new opinions or information. You can sign up by clicking here.

If you feel that you have something valuable you can contribute, you can do it in two ways. You could become a contributor to Positive Investor, or you could join our discussion boards, where you can chat with other like-minded people. We are hoping to get a team of contributors together, from a wide range of backgrounds, so that we can present a more balanced view and so that we can all take part in helping others to make a positive difference to the world. We are hoping to build a community here, where we can all share and benefit from each others knowledge.

If you have anything to add, or if you feel we are missing something out or are going about things the wrong way, feel free to contact us here, or by emailing contact@positiveinvestor.org

We hope you like what you see. If you want to improve it, join us. Thank you for visiting our site.

Posted in Welcome

Kames Ethical Equity Fund

Posted on 15/11/2011 by Kotagiri| Leave a comment

Aegon asset management has recently re-branded themselves as Kames Capital. They are a large investment management firm with over £47 Billion under management and over 200 employees. Kames is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment.

The fund was launched in April 1989 at a price of 24p. Audrey Ryan has run it for over 10 years – this has created a balanced, stable management style with a long term approach to investing. As of November 2011 the price has risen to 99.51p. In the last year the value of the stock has reduced by just over 2.5% – an indication of the funds stability. The fund is available as an Accumulator fund.

The key objective of the fund is to maximise total return by investment in equities and equity-type securities in companies based in the UK, principally conducting business in the UK, or listed on the UK stock market, which meet the Fund’s predefined ethical criteria. They have an ethical screening process which evaluates the effects that certain companies’ activities, products and services can have on the environment and society at large. They also use EIRIS (a leading provider of independent research into the environmental, social, governance and ethical performance of companies)as a source of ethical investment criteria.

The fund is a so-called “dark-green” fund. This means that the managers use negative screening to decide what they can invest in. This is opposed to the positive screening carried out by “light green” funds which aim to actively screen in companies based on positive criteria. The result of this is that the fund is unable to include many large companies because they normally break one or more of the investment criteria. They mainly tend to invest in small to medium cap companies. The ethical criteria of the fund prevent it being able to invest in any banking, tobacco or pharmaceutical stocks and it mainly seems to be invested in more industrial or consumer sectors.

This fund is less concerned with investing in things such as renewable energy than it is with not investing in any “bad” companies. They are on the lookout for high-quality stocks in any sectors which match their investment objectives – these stocks do not necessarily have to be from green companies. For example, the single largest holding is Vodafone – not necessarily a company that springs to mind when thinking about ethical investing.

Posted in Accumulation Fund, Fund

Aberdeen Multi-Manager Ethical Portfolio

Posted on 15/11/2011 by Kotagiri| Leave a comment

the_excerpt()A popular method for investing in funds is to use a Multi-Manager option. This method allows the investor to gain diversity (and hence reduced risk) without having to actively manage their portfolio on a day to day basis as somebody else does all the hard work. There are also potential tax savings to be made as managers of multi-managed funds do not have to pay capital gains tax when they make changes to their portfolio – something individual investors would be unable to do. You only pay capital gains when you sell the fund, if the gain takes you above the annual capital gains tax threshold.

The Aberdeen Multi-Manager Ethical Fund is managed by a team from one of the UK’s most experienced and respected brokerages. The fund’s investment objectives are simple – to achieve capital growth. Investment will be primarily in shares or units of collective investment schemes investing in companies in any geographic area or sector which have an ethical, socially responsible or environmental consideration. As a multi-managed fund, the main thing they invest in is other funds.

This fund is grouped into the “specialist” category and as such can be considered higher risk. From the most recently published performance data it can be seen that the fund had just 10 holdings and was only £27.0m in size. Over the past year the fund has underperformed its benchmark and has lost over 15% of its value in the last 6 months. However, the fund has grown by over 30% since spring 2009. The fund is geographically diverse – over 44% of the portfolio is allocated “internationally” whilst another 15% is located in “Asia-Pacific”. We think this presents a good entry point – although please remember that past performance is no guide to future returns. The current entry price is much lower than it was 6 months ago, locking in past investors and presenting an opportunity for you to make a gain before they can break even. The fund represents an easy and convenient way to tap into the knowledge and experience of respected fund managers who can invest in a range of ethical funds and monitor their progress on a day to day basis.

For more information, visit the Aberdeen website. You can view their most recent (September 2011) performance report Here.

Posted in Fund, Multi-Manager Fund

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