Tiffany, Facebook and Hasbro make the cut in clean energy ETF

[HOUSTON] What do a luxury jeweller, a tech behemoth and a toymaker have to do with renewable energy?

Tiffany & Co, Facebook Inc and Hasbro Inc are some of the more than 80 holdings in the exchange-traded, renewable energy fund launched by BP Capital Fund Advisors LLC, a Dallas-based firm named for Pickens. That's because the underlying index includes companies that use renewable energy resources or get some of their revenue from them.

It's an unusual strategy for a renewable energy fund. Other clean energy investment vehicles are composed primarily of companies that derive a significant amount of their revenue from renewable energy, said Eric Balchunas, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. "Certainly this is going to give it some stability," he said. "What you give up is purity."

To be sure, the list of companies in the fund, posted as of Wednesday, includes some predictable names, such as renewable energy giant NextEra Energy Inc, and gives them heavier weight. But it mostly reads like a who's who in corporate clean-energy buying with stocks, with Alphabet Inc and Microsoft Corp making the roster.

BP Capital decided last month to convert an ETF (exchange-traded fund) tracking oil companies into one that gives investors exposure to clean energy, changing the ticker symbol from "BOON" to "RENW". It includes companies that derive at least 5 per cent of their revenue from renewable energy or at least 10 per cent from "green transportation". Companies can also qualify if they use renewable energy resources to meet at least half of their primary energy demand or rank favourably in carbon exposure metrics developed by Sustainalytics.

"It's effectively acknowledging and identifying those companies that are actually changing their consumption patterns for more renewable energy," Toby Loftin, founder of BP Capital, said by telephone.

A few other holdings in the ETF include wind and solar farm owner Pattern Energy Group, Tesla, Walmart, Apple and Salesforce.com.

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