ii ACE 40 investments:
Impax Environmental Markets IT

Why we recommend it

The strategy is managed by three portfolio managers, including Bruce Jenkyn-Jones and Jon Forster. Jenkyn-Jones is the CIO of Impax’s listed equity team and he and Forster boast more than three decades of relevant experience. Fotis Chatzimichalakis became the third named manager in October 2021. He joined the firm in 2015 and joined this strategy’s portfolio construction team in 2017. The managers are backed by an extensive 28-strong group blending industry veterans and more-junior staff.

The approach is dedicated to investing in profitable companies operating in environmental markets. The portfolio managers typically hunt for growth companies but are also valuation-conscious and will avoid stocks they deem overvalued. The team narrows its investable universe by applying a screen on environmental, financial quality, and valuation criteria. Portfolio candidates must derive at least 50% of their sales from what the team thinks are environmental activities, such as energy efficiency, water infrastructure, and pollution control. Attractive prospects are then vetted in a detailed and structured 10-step process in which the team looks at, among other things, management quality, regulations, and risks. The process is rounded with a comprehensive valuation assessment based on discounted cash flow models and various multiples, which also includes a rigorous analysis of potential scenarios, resulting in a well-considered range of intrinsic values.

The portfolio tends to have a mid- and small-cap bias and sector bets which deviate significantly from broad global indexes, such as the MSCI AC World Index. The fund typically also has growth style bias and these factors all contribute to a return profile that can deviate significantly from the index from time-to-time.

The fund benefits from an experienced team and a long-standing strong investment process that has been executed successfully through time. The fund’s mid- and small- cap bias results in a higher risk, more volatile return profile.

The fund's ongoing charge is 0.81% 

Ethical criteria

ii ACE ethical style: Embraces. This means the investment trust adopts a targeted or proactive approach to ethical investing, in an effort to make a positive impact and/or environmental outcomes.

Fund EcoMarket category: Environmentally Themed. This applies to funds that significantly integrate environmental issues into their investment strategies, sometimes alongside ethical avoidance criteria. Their focus is often around longer term environmental and resource related issues.

How the fund is managed: The objective is to enable investors to benefit from growth in the markets for cleaner or more efficient delivery of basic services of energy, water and waste. Investments are made predominantly in quoted companies that provide, utilise, implement or advise upon technology-based systems, products or services in environmental markets. There is particular focus on alternative energy and energy efficiency, water treatment and pollution control, and waste technology and resource management (which includes sustainable food, agriculture and forestry).