HEAD-TO-HEAD: BNP Paribas versus Pictet

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MANAGER REVIEW

The BNP Paribas fund is managed by a team of 18 people, with industry veterans Hubert Aarts and Bruce Jenkyn-Jones at the helm. The two men are also co-heads of the broader equity team at Impax.

“The managers are part of and backed by Impax’s listed equity team, an extensive group that mixes experienced professionals with more-junior staff,” said van Genderen.

The team members have various backgrounds, though mostly related to sustainable investing — the core expertise of the team. This team has been very stable, as it has seen only three departures since 2015, according to van Genderen.

“We think this is a sizable and well-resourced team; it boasts a high level of expertise in environmental markets,” he said.

The Pictet fund is run by a team of three managers. Luciano Diana and Gabriel Micheli have led it since the repositioning of the strategy in October 2014.

“Both are well-experienced in the environmental market space, and have stints at Pictet’s clean energy strategy before taking over the environmental fund,” said van Genderen.

Since their start at this strategy, they have been supported by a third portfolio manager, but over the years there have been changes. The most recent recruit is Yi Du, who joined the team as new hire in September 2018.

Additional support is provided by Pictet’s 34-member thematic equities team, “which is a stable and experienced group”, said van Genderen.

“Given the large overlap of this strategy’s portfolio with holdings of other strategies managed by this group, this forms a helpful resource,” he said.

Finally, the team also benefits from the input of a two-member advisory board, which helps to assess the evolution of trends and their impact on the investable universe, he added.

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