Phillip Capital Management names ESG head, looks to boost ethical portfolio offerings

PHILLIP Capital Management (PCM) has appointed Stephen Beng as its first head of ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) strategy.

The move comes as the financial house looks to offer ESG strategies as part of its future product roadmap, together with its UK counterpart King & Shaxson Asset Management.

In his new role, Mr Beng will spearhead ESG integrations at both the group and firm levels. He will deploy the framework towards PCM's ESG commitments, as well as within the investment portfolios managed by the firm.

Prior to the appointment, he held regional senior management roles in several financial services firms with experience as relationship manager, product developer and communicator.

Concurrently, he is the chairman of the Friends of Marine Park Community - a platform for multi-sectoral stakeholders to make contributions towards national sustainability commitments through research, conservation and education.

PCM noted that the Covid-19 pandemic coincided with the increasing momentum of trading activities in ESG-related funds in 2020. The group said the overall trading value in ESG ETFs (exchange-traded funds) rose by over 100 per cent as at mid-April 2021, compared with the whole of 2020, while assets under management (AUM) of ESG funds crossed S$500 million.

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PCM's Phillip Global Quality Fund is the only local offering to have ESG considerations, but is not considered ESG-centred. In contrast, King & Shaxson Asset Management has been managing ethical portfolios since 2002, with a running AUM of about £160 million (S$294.6 million).

In the first phase of bolstering ESG offerings, PCM will wrap the ethical portfolios from the UK office and bring them to accredited investors in Singapore. As at end-March, the performance of the portfolios ranged from 31.4 per cent to 57.6 per cent over the past five years, PCM said.

PCM chief executive Linus Lim said there are still a lot of nuances in this part of the world compared to the western hemisphere when it comes to ESG.

"At this nascent stage, more investor education opportunities need to be created to fill the gaps. Industry-wise, the changing landscape also calls for a greater degree of ESG standardisation and benchmarking," he added.