• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Subscribe
  • Twitter
  • RSS Feed

Investment News NZ

Investment News provides financial advisers news stories from the financial industry in New Zealand. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter.

  • Home
  • News
  • Kiwisaver
  • Subscribe
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Investment News / PRI upgrades Australasian presence in Asian push

PRI upgrades Australasian presence in Asian push

October 19, 2020

Sheela Veerappan: UNPRI head Australia and NZ

The United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investment, the global organisation representing about 3,300 pension funds and fund managers, has upgraded its presence in Australia with the appointment of a head of Australia and New Zealand.

Sheela Veerappan was appointed to the vacant role in October, after having joined PRI in 2019 as a relationship manager responsible for Australasia. The organisation is currently looking for another relationship manager to fill her old position.

Sydney-based Veerappan reports to Matthew McAdam, the Melbourne-based director of Asia Pacific, who joined the organisation in 2012 in a communications role and headed up Australasia from 2017. He took on the Asia Pacific responsibility in early 2019. Australia and New Zealand currently account for nearly 200 of the signatories to PRI.

Veerappan said last week (October 15) that Asia was the next growth frontier for PRI, which is based in London and headed by Australian Fiona Reynolds, the former chief executive of AIST, since 2013. PRI has a three-person office on the mainland in China and a representative office in Hong Kong.

Veerappan has had a long career advising institutional asset owners, firstly at Mercer Investment Consulting in Sydney and then Russell Investments in Singapore, followed by a two-year stint at Willis Towers Watson back in Sydney. It was at Mercer as a junior investment analyst that she was given the opportunity to join the small-but-growing responsible investment team, led by Helga Birgden, now the head of ESG for Mercer globally, based in London.

“Helga was very influential in steering my career in that [ESG] direction,” Veerappan said. “At the time, responsible investing was thought to be synonymous with ethical investing, which tended to have a non-financial element to it. The managers and funds in the space tended to rely on negative screens. That’s where my passion for ESG came from and continued at Russell in Singapore.”

The issue with Singapore, where she worked for four years starting in 2011, and the rest of Asia for that matter, was that “it was difficult to fly the ESG flag there” at that time, due to very little interest from either the pension schemes or managers. “Since then there has been a 360-degree turnaround, with green finance being of particular interest in several countries, especially China,” she said.

Green finance is being promoted strongly through several policies initiated by the Chinese Government, whereas it tends to remain a fringe part of the ESG picture in most other countries, including Australia. Australian-domiciled fixed income funds which have a formal ESG bent are vastly outnumbered by equity funds of a similar nature. Australia has a few state government-initiated “green bonds” but these are small raisings and usually designed for a particular purpose in impact investing.

The Australian banks, still the main lenders in corporate and resource development, have largely resisted the trend to be influenced by ESG principles. According to the not-for-profit Market Forces organisation, 11 banks operating in Australia have made substantial loans to fossil fuel producers in the past six years, totalling about $49 billion, including $5.26 billion loaned by the Bank of China.

 

 

Greg Bright is publisher of Investor Strategy News (Australia)

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Twitter0
LinkedIn0
Google+0
Facebook0

Read More » Investment News

Recent articles

  • KiwiWRAP lays down investment backing tracks January 24, 2021
  • Government to set eyes on PIEs as tax hike bites January 24, 2021
  • Venture fund hires short-term chief, refits board January 24, 2021
  • MJW finds KiwiSaver manager choice matters more at riskier end… January 24, 2021
  • … as weight gain spread among mid-level schemes January 24, 2021
  • NZX admin unit confirms old client for new platform January 24, 2021
  • NZ Super adjusts dials on reference portfolio as risk-return gauge edges up January 24, 2021
  • State Street wins Perpetual custody job January 24, 2021
  • New future-facing FAP compliance firm fronts up January 24, 2021

Primary Sidebar

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Learn More »

Most Recent Investment News

KiwiWRAP lays down investment backing tracks

January 24, 2021

Government to set eyes on PIEs as tax hike bites

January 24, 2021

Venture fund hires short-term chief, refits board

January 24, 2021

MJW finds KiwiSaver manager choice matters more at riskier end…

January 24, 2021

… as weight gain spread among mid-level schemes

January 24, 2021

Search by Keyword

Investment News

  • KiwiWRAP lays down investment backing tracks January 24, 2021
  • Government to set eyes on PIEs as tax hike bites January 24, 2021
  • Venture fund hires short-term chief, refits board January 24, 2021
  • MJW finds KiwiSaver manager choice matters more at riskier end… January 24, 2021
  • … as weight gain spread among mid-level schemes January 24, 2021
  • NZX admin unit confirms old client for new platform January 24, 2021
  • NZ Super adjusts dials on reference portfolio as risk-return gauge edges up January 24, 2021
  • State Street wins Perpetual custody job January 24, 2021
  • New future-facing FAP compliance firm fronts up January 24, 2021
  • How to fit ESG processes into UN’s sustainability goals January 24, 2021

Investment News Archive

Most Popular Articles

  • NZ share-trading splurge could trigger tax alarms… posted on October 5, 2020
  • Westpac NZ flags retail advice sale to Forsyth Barr posted on October 19, 2020
  • The horror year in technicolour: free KiwiSaver 13 report released posted on September 30, 2020
  • Flint set to spark platform competition posted on August 17, 2020
  • Four to the core: Smartshares to expand, rearrange and reprice ETFs posted on June 22, 2020
  • Kitset KiwiSaver scheme set to unwrap in spring posted on April 27, 2020
  • Funds eye bargains, self-shoppers hoard cash, KiwiSavers turn conservative posted on March 15, 2020
  • AMP Capital NZ chief quits amid equities exodus offshore posted on August 28, 2020

Sponosored Content

David-Boyle

On the industry play-list: four chart-topping regulations for 2021

David-Boyle

Charge of the lite (advice) brigade

Nathan Field

Pandemic Baby Boom a Bust

Star-date 2020: it’s inflation Jim but not as we know it

Quick-links to Popular News

  • FAP Compliance
  • Coronavirus
  • New Appointments
  • Financial Markets Authority (FMA)
  • Kiwisaver
  • Climate Change
  • Crypto Currency
  • Blockchain
  • Insurance

Secondary Sidebar

Recent News

  • KiwiWRAP lays down investment backing tracks January 24, 2021
  • Government to set eyes on PIEs as tax hike bites January 24, 2021
  • Venture fund hires short-term chief, refits board January 24, 2021
  • MJW finds KiwiSaver manager choice matters more at riskier end… January 24, 2021
  • … as weight gain spread among mid-level schemes January 24, 2021
  • NZX admin unit confirms old client for new platform January 24, 2021
  • NZ Super adjusts dials on reference portfolio as risk-return gauge edges up January 24, 2021
  • State Street wins Perpetual custody job January 24, 2021
  • New future-facing FAP compliance firm fronts up January 24, 2021
  • How to fit ESG processes into UN’s sustainability goals January 24, 2021

Footer

Copyright ©2020 InvestmentNews.co.nz — All Rights Reserved ·— Terms & Conditions