Wheb’s new fund sees opportunity in valuations

London, 25 June: Wheb Ventures has launched a sister company to invest in listed equities set to benefit from their exposure to three ‘megatrends’ – water, climate change and demographic change.

Wheb Asset Management – run by sustainable investment veterans Clare Brook and Nicola Donnelly – is raising its first fund, the IM Wheb Sustainability Fund. The fund will invest globally, and aims to take advantage of current “attractive valuations” of companies, according to Donnelly.

The managers hope to attract a relatively modest £50 million ($83 million) into the fund by the end of the year, but Donnelly told Environmental Finance that the initial focus was on building up a strong performance story.

“At a time when equity valuations are compelling, you can get a very good three- to five-year performance – then, you can see exponential growth in assets under management. It pays to be patient,” she said.

Donnelly most recently managed assets for the charity and endowment sector, after specialising in sustainable investment at CIS. Brook began managing sustainable investment funds at Jupiter Asset Management in 1990, before raising £1 billion over six years into the Global Care funds at NPI – which was acquired by Henderson Global Investors – and repeated the feat at Morley Fund Management with its Sustainable Future funds. 

The new fund – which is is open to retail and institutional investors – aims to outperform the MSCI World index by 3-5% annually, investing in companies that derive at least 30% of their revenues from the three trends.

Donnelly noted that, compared with some clean-tech funds, which are often squarely aimed at higher-risk, growth sectors, the fund benefits from “some very defensive areas we can go into”, citing water utilities, healthcare and “stodgy pharma”.

“We hope to be able to deliver consistent returns,” she added.

As examples of value in the sectors the fund is looking at, she named pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca, whose share price has yet to benefit from a number of analyst upgrades, and UK’s Eaga, which specialises in energy efficiency.