Gill Wadsworth reported on an independent review of the Colombia Threadneedle UK Social Bond Fund this week, with Nigel Kershaw OBE, Chair of The Big Issue Group, saying that there had been both demonstrable positive financial returns and social impact.
The fund, which has GBP394 million in assets, returned 6.5 per cent in 2025. For February 2026, Colombia Threadneedle reported that gross of fees that “the fund modestly outperformed its benchmark index over the month”.
The fund aims to address a number of social challenges from housing shortages to insufficient access to quality education and healthcare, and unsustainable provision of transport and infrastructure.
The majority of the fund’s fees go towards supporting The Big Issue Group in “unlocking social and economic opportunities for people in poverty”.
Global digital assets have been having quite the time of it this year, and this week we bring you our monthly round up of news of the asset class in ETF or ETP form, brought to you in partnership with CoinDesk and Trackinsight, and written by Joshua de Vos, Research Lead at CoinDesk. March saw institutional demand return in force, de Vos says. According to TrackInsight data, global digital-asset investment products recorded USD1.75 billion in net inflows during March, pushing total assets under management to USD130.6 billion, with the United States accounting for the vast majority of the recovery while European markets contributed meaningfully in the same direction.
Looking forward, de Vos notes that March’s USD1.75 billion inflow figure is substantial, but its composition tells an important story. “IBIT [the iShares bitcoin ETF] alone accounted for USD1.28 billion of the global total, and the ETHB debut contributed USD405.8 million, meaning the two products together represent over 96 per cent of the recovery. Strip those out and the broader market added a modest USD60 million across the rest.”
Our In My Opinion this week comes from Andrew Douglas, Chair of the UK Accelerated Settlement Taskforce, who warns that the UK, EU and Switzerland will transition to a T+1 settlement cycle on 11 October 2027. That accelerated settlement will eliminate more than 80 per cent of the time to correct post-trade errors, making process automation essential to keeping up with new efficiency demands, he says.
Finally, I am very pleased to be back chairing two ETF panels at IMPower Fund Forum again this summer and will be visiting with our new head of business development, Simon Holloway. Come and find us. And, using this link, I can offer you a 10 per cent discount on the attendance.
Beverly Chandler, Managing Editor, Institutional Asset Manager
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