Letter from our CEO
For almost a century, Anthos has invested to secure long-term financial returns whilst being a force for good. In a challenging year for responsible investors,
our values guided us through.
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Dear investors,
At Anthos Fund & Asset Management (Anthos), our mission is to give trust-worthy advice and deliver holistic values-based asset management services to professional investors who share our values of sustainability, human dignity and good corporate citizenship.
These values are our lens to see the world. We inherited them from our first client, the Brenninkmeijer family, whom we have served for nearly a century. Having opened our doors to like-minded clients, we have found that they resonate with others too.
As I reflect on the past year, I think of the many challenges we faced as a global society.
It began with hope for the end of the COVID-19 era, only to be disrupted by the Russia/Ukraine war, soaring inflation and consequent aggressive interest rate hiking. Meanwhile, COVID-19 continued to impact lives differently across economies, depending on vaccine equality, healthcare infrastructure, and stringency of COVID policies. Aside from the immediate crises, we confronted the environmental and social challenges that are coming to define what our future looks like.
In the face of these challenges, how we act will equally define our future. More and more, asset owners are moving on from ‘simple’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) awareness, to wanting their capital to help move the needle with such things as tackling climate change; treating human rights as essential, and; acting responsibly, and expecting the same of others.
“Our mission propels us to help investors generate stable investment returns over multiple generations whilst also aligning their capital with their values, beliefs and goals.”
Our mission propels us to help investors generate stable investment returns over multiple generations whilst also aligning their capital with their values, beliefs, and goals. We harness the full capital spectrum to achieve this—from listed markets to private markets and alternatives, including dedicated positive-impact portfolios. We also offer outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) solutions to help unburden our clients by constructing and managing their entire portfolios for them. Underpinning all investment activity is our responsible investment (RI) practice, which ensures that we incorporate our values in all stages of the investment process.
One of the most concerning issues that requires investor attention is decarbonising our economy to keep global temperatures in line with a 1.5-degree Celsius pathway.
In 2021, Anthos set an ambition to be net zero across our investment platform by 2040. That means we assessed our baseline emissions, calculated an emissions reduction pathway, and committed to achieving this publicly.
We realise how steep the learning curve is and that our strategy will necessarily evolve along with developments in data quality, regulatory changes, and a better understanding of how to approach such a seismic task. Anthos joins many relevant initiatives to gain a broad insight into how to tackle the problem from our unique perspective. These too will develop and change over time. As we continue down this road, we look forward to engaging with our clients and partners by providing honest and fair assessments of opportunities and challenges, as well as progress.
As you will read in this report, 2022 saw many challenges when it came to responsible investment, which reflects the events that took place in the real economy. Meanwhile, the extensive work to adhere to the Sustainable Financial Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) was a considerable firm-wide effort. Crucially, it was a challenging year for financial returns and balanced portfolios where high correlations and concentrations in markets meant most asset classes declined in step with the negative sentiment in the year. We were proud that our uncorrelated asset classes helped our clients' portfolios fare better than the traditional 60/40 portfolios while we continued to deliver on our ESG promises. That said, there are very real responsible investment challenges ahead, which will no doubt be amplified as the fragility of the global system becomes increasingly evident as we strive to improve it.
As responsible investors with conviction in our approach and who are committed to our values, we will approach what comes with the humility that our clients continue to trust us as the stewards of their capital for many years to come.
Sincerely,
Jacco Maters
Chief Executive Officer
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