BOSTON — April 11, 2007 —
State Street Global Advisors, the investment management arm of State Street Corporation, announced today the launch of an innovative strategy for institutional investors to capture the sustainability of emerging markets—the Rexiter Global Emerging Markets Sustainability Strategy. Developed in conjunction with IFC, Rexiter Capital Management Limited, and Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, Inc., the strategy is based on a two-year track record that has outperformed its benchmark since inception on September 30, 2004.* The value of investments is exposed to volatile market influences and can fluctuate accordingly. Past performance returns do not provide a guarantee that future performance will be similar.
The strategy is designed to integrate environmental, social, and governance factors systematically into its portfolio construction process and aims to outperform the return of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index by four percent per year over the course of a full market cycle.
The pioneering Rexiter Global Emerging Markets Sustainability Strategy aims to establish best practice for future sustainability strategies in emerging market equities. Until now, the information and framework investors needed to integrate environmental and social issues into emerging markets investments were not available.
“Sophisticated investors are increasingly becoming aware of the impact of sustainability factors on investment value,” said Bill Page, chair of State Street Global Advisors’ environmental, social, and governance team. “This new strategy utilizes an established investment process and combines it with a rigorous environmental, social, and governance stock-rating methodology that aims to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns.”
The strategy, managed by Rexiter, a State Street Global Alliance company that specializes in emerging market strategies, applies a sustainability overlay implemented by Innovest. Innovest, also a Global Alliance company, specializes in the analysis of companies’ environmental and social performance.
IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, played a key role in the development of the strategy’s concept and structure. IFC is the first to invest in the strategy and will dedicate up to $20 million in equity.
“This strategy enables institutional investors to make long-term investments in emerging markets while achieving their sustainability goals,” said Rachel Kyte, IFC Director of Environment and Social Development. “I sincerely hope it will have a catalytic effect and will encourage others to follow suit. IFC believes this is essential if we are to put global capital to work for sustainable development.”
About State Street Global Advisors
State Street Global Advisors, the investment management arm of State Street Corporation, delivers investment strategies and integrated solutions to clients worldwide across every asset class, investment approach, and style. With $1.7 trillion in assets under management as of December 31, 2006, State Street Global Advisors has investment centers in Boston, Hong Kong, London, Milan, Montreal, Munich, Paris, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Zurich, and offices in 25 cities worldwide.
About Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, Inc.
Innovest Strategic Value Advisors is an international investment research and advisory firm specializing in analyzing companies’ performance on environmental, social, and strategic governance issues, with a particular focus on their impact on competitiveness, profitability, and share price performance. Innovest’s institutional investor clients manage combined assets of over $7 trillion. Innovest was recently rated the #1 global provider of “nontraditional” investment research in the Thomson Extel survey of institutional investors. The firm is also the only pure research provider to be recommended by the Enhanced Analytics Initiative. Innovest has offices in New York City, Toronto, San Francisco, London, Paris, Sydney, and Tokyo.
About Rexiter Capital Management Limited.
Rexiter Capital Management Limited is a London-based investment management company specializing in fundamental-based global, regional, and country-specific emerging market strategies. The Rexiter team consists of 15 investment professionals and six support staff based in London, Singapore, and Seoul. All trading (along with settlements, compliance, and legal services) is provided by State Street Global Advisors. Assets under management as of December 2006 were $6.7 billion. Rexiter provides management services to a number of large pension funds, endowments, foundations, corporate clients and mutual funds.
About IFC
IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, promotes open and competitive markets in developing countries. IFC supports sustainable private sector companies and other partners in generating productive jobs and delivering basic services, so that people have opportunities to escape poverty and improve their lives. Through FY06, IFC Financial Products has committed more than $56 billion in funding for private sector investments and mobilized an additional $25 billion in syndications for 3,531 companies in 140 developing countries. IFC Advisory Services and donor partners have provided more than $1 billion in program support to build small enterprises, to accelerate private participation in infrastructure, to improve the business enabling environment, to increase access to finance, and to strengthen environmental and social sustainability. For more information, please visit
www.ifc.org
.
* The value of investments is exposed to volatile market influences and can fluctuate accordingly. Past performance returns do not provide a guarantee that future performance will be similar.
