Sustainability Policy

Objectives

Altrafin AG aims to ensure that the companies in which it invests for its clients respect affected stakeholders, as well as society and the environment. At the same time, the focus lies in achieving return targets and protecting our clients’ assets.

Introduction

Although Altrafin AG, as a Swiss asset manager, is not directly affected by the sustainability-related disclosure requirements of the EU in the financial sector, we have chosen to follow the transparency required regarding strategies for managing sustainability risks and adverse sustainability impacts at the corporate level. We do not intend to advertise environmental or social characteristics in the mandates we manage. We do not have a dedicated ESG strategy and do not take mandatory account of the EU criteria for environmentally sustainable business activities. 

Altrafin AG has been a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment since 2018 and is comitted to these principles. Since 2018, we have taken internally defined ESG criteria into account as part of investment activities. ESG selection features are applied in security selection and are an integral part of the investment process. Our ESG process also includes sustainability risks and strict exclusion criteria. Securities and investment products are selected from an overall risk and return perspective.

Definitions

Sustainability risks:
These are environmental, social, or governance events or conditions that may have an actual or potential material adverse effect on the value of an investment. These risks may impact the performance of the mandates managed by Altrafin AG as well as our reputation. 

Sustainability Factors:
These include environmental, social and employee concerns, respect for human rights, and the fight against corruption and bribery.

ESG factors:
These relate to the areas of environment, social affairs, and corporate governance. The environmental area includes topics such as climate protection, resource consumption, and emissions. The social area includes topics such as employees, human rights, community, and product responsibility. The corporate governance area includes topics such as transparency, compensation structure, and anti-corruption.

Strategy on sustainability risks

Altrafin considers ESG factors in its investment process in addition to financial risks. As a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investments, we are commited to do so. Our investment process includes a multi-stage, self-developed ESG process.

In the first stage, securities that do not meet our exclusion criteria are screened out. In the next stage, selection is based on ESG scores from Refinitiv. Companies that adequately address sustainability risks perform better in the scoring model than those that do not. Each company must meet a threshold to be considered as an invesment candidate.

The portfolio management team, together with the risk and compliance team, must analyze the ESG scores in more detail. If the result is positive, the company can be used as a target investment despite a missed threshold. This is necessary because data quality and availability are insufficient for many companies. Not all companies with a low ESG score are automatically excluded. Data quality and availability will improve over time. The development prospects of the companies are also considered. For existing investments, this process is carried out continuously. If an ESG score drops sustainably, a sale of the position must be considered. 

Altrafin always acts in the interest of its clients. Despite the installed process, sustainability risks can influence the development of investments.

Transparency of adverse sustainability impacts

At present, we do not take into account any adverse impacts of investment decisions on sustainability factors as the necessary data for this is not available to a sufficient extent. At latest from the date specified in the relevant regulation, we will provide information on whether and how we consider the main adverse impacts of investment decisions on sustainability factors. We do not directly exercise voting rights during general meetings of target companies due to the management of different and globally oriented client portfolios. It is currently not possible for us to ensure this exercise of voting rights with reasonable effort. 

 

Review and update

This sustainability policy is reviewed and updated on an ongoing basis to meet regulatory requirements.