T Rowe Price has launched its first dedicated UK investment strategy – the T Rowe Price Funds OEIC – Responsible UK Equity Fund which applies a socially responsible screen, designed to align with the most common ESG concerns expressed by its clients.
T Rowe Price has launched its first dedicated UK investment strategy – the T Rowe Price Funds OEIC – Responsible UK Equity Fund which applies a socially responsible screen, designed to align with the most common ESG concerns expressed by its clients.
The screen excludes companies involved in an extreme ESG breach and are not taking steps to remediate the issue.
The fund also utilises the group’s Responsible Investing Indicator Model (RIIM), which helps to screen the investment universe for responsible investing risks and opportunities and can help manage overall portfolio exposure to responsible investments.
Mitchell Todd – who has almost two decades of investment experience, with more than 13 years at T Rowe Price – is the portfolio manager of the new fund. Prior to running the portfolio, Todd transitioned from co-head of EMEA equities, where he oversaw T Rowe Price’s European portfolio management and analyst team. This team more than doubled in size under Todd’s stewardship since 2014, demonstrating the group’s commitment to generating outsized alpha in the region.
The T Rowe Price Funds OEIC – Responsible UK Equity Fund will typically hold approximately 85 per cent of its 40-60 positions in companies described as durable compounders, with the remainder of the portfolio exploring companies on a path to improving cash flow and returns. The fund can invest across the entire UK equity market cap spectrum.
T Rowe Price’s history in the UK dates back to 1979, when the group partnered with Robert Fleming to open its first international office in London which now has 592 associates.
In recent years, T Rowe Price has strengthened its footprint in the UK by hiring a number of regional relationship managers to service its growing local client base. In addition, T Rowe Price launched its OEIC fund range in 2016, enabling further access to its specialist investment strategies for investors preferring UK-domiciled vehicles.
“The launch of T Rowe Price’s first dedicated UK strategy further demonstrates our ambitions in the UK. We are extremely pleased with the ongoing development of our OEIC range, alongside the continual strengthening of our client service capability across all investor segments,” says John Yule, head of UK and Ireland at T Rowe Price.
“T Rowe Price is renowned for fundamental bottom-up research and investors in this strategy will also benefit from a responsible investment framework – which assists in the identification of corporates on the right side of change.”
