Investment Management

Liontrust believes investment processes are key to long-term performance and effective risk control. Each investment team manages their portfolios according to their own investment processes and market views. Staying true to their documented investment processes helps to create an in-built risk control for our fund managers, especially in more challenging environments, by preventing them from investing in companies and funds for the wrong reasons. Liontrust ensures that appropriate and prudent levels of risk are taken to meet the investment objectives and policies of all our funds.

Liontrust’s investment processes guide the teams’ stewardship and decision making. Where possible, the investment teams vote their proxies. Many teams also engage their holdings on material issues. Proxy voting decisions and engagements are led by the team’s investment process. The differences between approaches to the integration of ESG-related areas, stewardship, engagement, and voting stems from the different investment processes of each investment team and to a smaller degree by asset class.

We have been working to provide each team with the information and support to allow them to integrate ESG, ensuring their investment processes are enhanced and complemented by this work rather than imposing a centralised solution.

We are committed to continue our work on achieving the following:

• enhancing our ESG data and analytics for all our investment strategies
• training our staff in our sustainability
• investing in our company engagement capacity and resourcing
• disclosing how we integrate sustainability in each strategy and across the company
• increasing our reporting for funds on their ESG and climate characteristics
• improving our aggregated company reporting

Science-based Targets

We’ve set near-term science-based targets to show our commitment to reducing emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals. We commit to:

• Reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 42% by 2030 from a 2022 base year.
• 52% of our listed equity and corporate bond portfolio by market value setting SBTi validated targets by 2027 from a 2022 base year.

We are delighted that the SBTi has approved Liontrust Asset Management’s near-term science-based emissions reduction targets.

FTSE4Good

FTSE Russell (the trading name of FTSE International Limited and Frank Russell Company) confirms that Liontrust has been independently assessed according to the FTSE4Good criteria, and has satisfied the requirements to become a constituent of the FTSE4Good Index Series. Created by the global index provider FTSE Russell, the FTSE4Good Index Series is designed to measure the performance of companies demonstrating strong Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices. The FTSE4Good indices are used by a wide variety of market participants to create and assess responsible investment funds and other products.

CCLA Corporate Mental Health Benchmark

We are delighted to be part of the investor coalition for the CCLA Corporate Mental Health Benchmark. The benchmark evaluates the largest UK-listed companies, with more than 10,000 employees, on their mental health disclosures.

We are also a signatory to the UK Stewardship Code.

The teams report on the stewardship activities and where possible show the connection between ESG integration, stewardship and investment decisions.