Osmosis Investment Management has been chosen by Australia’s Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation for the development of a resource efficient equity strategy for the Australian pension market.
According to Osmosis, the portfolio was developed through collaboration and targets exposure to its proprietary resource efficiency factor within a 70bps ex-ante tracking error, while replicating the style, industry, currency and risk exposures of the benchmark – MSCI World (ex-Australia).
In an update on its website, A$50bn (€31bn) Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation said: “Osmosis have a robust, effective and objective way to reduce ESG risk and aims to optimise our investment exposure to companies that use water and energy efficiently and reduce waste.”
Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation is London-based Osmosis’ first Australian client. The pension fund said its appointment of Osmosis “reflects our drive for continuous innovation”.
“Through pioneering emerging investment ideas, our customers benefit from our early recognition of the importance of sustainable natural resource management,” it said.
Ben Dear, CEO of Osmosis, said: “Announcing this partnership with CSC further underscores our firm’s investment philosophy and thesis, that economic and environmental returns need not be mutually exclusive, and that resource efficient firms outperform their same sector peers.
“We look forward to working closely with CSC and in particular thank the investment and operational team for managing this process through to conclusion in the midst of the pandemic.”
The Commonwealth Superannuation client win comes after Osmosis earlier this month announced Anthos Fund & Asset Management, one of the largest family offices in the world, as the seed investor in its resource efficient market neutral strategy in a Cayman Island vehicle. In 2017, Sweden’s AP1 seeded an Osmosis low volatility resource efficiency fund.
Earlier this year Osmosis appointed industry veteran Mike O’Brien as special advisor to its asset management business.
O’Brien was previously CEO for the EMEA region at JP Morgan Asset Management and co-head of its global investment solutions business. He has worked at Barclays Global Investors and then BlackRock, and spent 14 years overseeing the UK and European investment consulting practice of what was then Towers Perrin.
He is an advisor to the UK’s Pension Protection Fund investment committee.
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