Evli’s has added to its family of factor funds with the launch of Evli Equity Factor Global, which provides access to developed markets worldwide. Evli’s expertise in factor funds is grounded not only on evidence from long-term academic research but also on the skills attained over the years within Evli’s portfolio management. Evli launched its equity factor funds investing in Europe and the USA in 2015-16, being a pioneer in the Nordic countries.
“Based on our research, factor investing works all over the world and we want to answer to client demand by offering a globally investing factor fund. With our new product, not only do clients have access to a greater geographical coverage, but they also get a well-diversified fund that otherwise replicates the same successful investment philosophy and factors as our other equity factor funds, these being value, momentum, quality and low risk,” say Antti Sivonen and Mattias Lagerspetz of Evli’s factor fund portfolio management team.
Academic research shows that factors are significant sources of added value, providing investors with better returns than the markets on average, while also allowing for broad diversification that minimises risk per share. The foundation of the portfolio management of Evli’s factor funds is based on systematically built models and algorithms. By doing this, the behavioural risks associated with investor psychology is excluded from the selection of investment targets, which is a significant advantage of factor investing.
Responsibility is also an essential part of the investment process in Evli’s factor funds, and this includes an analysis of the responsibility of each company and an ESG-based screening process.
“Already four years ago, we integrated a low-carbon process into the investment decisions of our factor funds. And last year, we transformed this into a more comprehensive ESG approach, using both exclusion criteria and selection of the best companies within each sector. We have found that ESG investing has worked effectively in factor funds. Now, in our new global factor fund, we will continue to focus on those companies that receive a high ESG rating,” says Peter Lindahl, Head of Systematic Funds at Evli.
In the ESG process for Evli Equity Factor Global, the selection is made from a global investment universe made up of the most responsible three-quarters of companies based on the ESG assessment by research firm MSCI. From this list of approximately 5,000 equities, only the best 600 equities will be selected for the fund’s holdings based on their factor characteristics. The investing is transparent and open, and the data that Evli uses to make investment decisions is the same data that is used to report to clients on responsibility. Evli recently updated its funds’ ESG reports, which are now among the most comprehensive reviews of fund responsibility in the market.
Evli’s factor fund team includes Senior Portfolio Manager Peter Lindahl, who has almost 25 years of experience in the financial sector in Finland and the USA, as well as Senior Portfolio Manager Antti Sivonen (13 years of finance industry experience) and Portfolio Manager Mattias Lagerspetz (8 years of finance industry experience).
