Press Articles and Conference Presentations
Hedgeweek Global ESG Conference 02/12/2021 (click on the image above to access the video of the panel)
Driving change in ESG investing
Ted discusses the long view of ESG, reaching back to his experience at the University of Chicago in the 1990s and how ESG's impact on shareholder returns has shifted over the decades. He also discusses how society’s expectations have shifted and that many of these expectations are becoming self-reinforcing and ever-growing headwinds for ESG violators. Ted then discusses how he has taken long-term risks into account throughout his career as they impact risks with a long-term view. For him, it was just good investing practice to understand risks in the future. Finally, Ted discusses the severe problems with ESG scorecards and how he takes a purely bottom-up, proprietary approach to long-term risk evaluation, avoiding scorecards and third-party data.
HFM ESG Summit - Panel “The Future of ESG” - Wednesday 1st of December 2021
https://www.hfmconnect.global/posts/key-takeaways-hfm-eu-esg-summit-2021
The Future of ESG
Ted discussed the long-term history of ESG and his view of its future. He discussed how in the 90s, the focus was on investor returns only and that ESG was assumed to cost an investor 2% per year in returns. He discussed how academic studies have shown that the cost for ESG investing has actually dissipated and in some studies now appears to be a positive contributor to returns. Ted voiced his opinion that in the 90s, ESG threats were long-term and well out of the time horizon for most investors, but that now all three (environmental, social, and governance) issues are in our faces and driving decisions and returns.
He also discussed the importance of doing what investors invested money for and not changing from that in a significant way (“Do what it says on the tin”). Therefore, it makes sense that dramatically different portfolios for ESG would need to be started from new investor allocations.
Finally, Ted discussed that he places the most hope in the IFRS establishing the ISSB to set ESG standards to be used by accounting firms. He likes this approach as auditors are providing assurance as to the financial results and are best placed to bring their assurance and consistency to ESG reporting.
Q&A with Blue Ocean Investment Partners Founder Ted Holmes, Chief Operating Officer Peter Jayawardena - October 4, 2021
Ted discusses the proprietary, bottom-up approach to ESG that Blue Ocean takes and contrasts that to what he sees elsewhere in the market with their use of scorecards and third-party data. He also discusses how our highly selective approach means we only invest in a small group of companies that do not have long-term headwinds and which have the strongest long-term opportunity sets. These companies are benefiting from the technological revolution and have decades ahead to grow. For our strategy in particular, we are focused on smaller and less well-known companies that investors don’t get exposure to elsewhere.
Investment View: Concentrated In Hunt For Alpha - Blue Ocean - June 30, 2021
Ted discusses the formation of Blue Ocean and how he formulated the strategy after reflecting for months on his 20+ years at UBS Asset Management. The strategy is an area of the market that Ted has shown consistent success in, enjoys focusing on, and where good long-term returns should be earned.