2024 Top 40 Money Managers Report: To divest or engage?
By Blake Wolfe
With 15 different client organizations, including nine public sector pension plans, the Alberta Investment Management Corp. has opted to engage, rather than divest, from certain investments, particularly those in the energy sector.
“One of the things we were very clear on, both for ourselves and in talking to clients, is that divestment wasn’t the way we wanted to go,” says Carmen Velasquez, the investment organization’s managing director of sustainable investing. “One of the things we talk a lot about is, if you divest, it’s not real world decarbonization — you’re divesting on paper, but the emissions are still there.”
By helping companies move from “grey to green,” the AIMCo is helping investees become more sustainable while retaining the current size of the investable universe, she adds. “We looked at who are the top emitters [in our portfolio] and a lot of them are in the public equity space, but they can also be in the illiquid space. We help a lot of companies within infrastructure, for example, that will be high emitting. . . . It has been interesting for us because there are times where we’ve connected portfolio companies to say, ‘OK, this company is really early in their journey. Will you talk to them about how you did that? Because you’re going to face the same issues.’”
Get the report here
