XENIX ESG Index Investing Seminar Finland was held in Helsinki on April 11th.
Henrik Husman, President of Nasdaq Helsinki and Head of European Cash Equities ETPs at Nasdaq Nordics, welcomed the guests at the historic jugendstyled Pörssitalo in Helsinki, together with Lotta Westerlund (AHK Finnland) and Aleksi Härmä (Seligson).
Jonathan Aalto from Seligson & Co kicked-off the seminar. He demonstrated with data series from 2003 to 2023 how difficult it can be to select the appropriate benchmark (like e.g. for the Finnish equities) and the respective funds (no matter if they are actively or passivly managed).
Seligson & Co runs (so far) Finland’s only ETFs since 2002, the SLG OMXH25, with the top-25 blue-chips, but also manages since 1998 the Finland Index Fund, one of the oldest trackers in Europe which mimics the top-40 equities based on the OMX Sustainability Finland Index.
Helmut Kotschwar explained that company-specific risks can deliver alpha, but that selective factor strategies could temporarily over/underperform market cap-weighted benchmarks. He highlighted that ESG investors should be aware of the fact that different sustainability filters (like e.g. the UN PRI exclusions, PAB-enhancements and/or strict SRI filters) could produce (unintended) factor exposures.
Perttu Hytönen, CAIA, and Sakari Jääskeläinen (both from LähiTapiola) showcased in a panel with Claus Hecher from BNP Paribas AM best practice examples for indexed ESG portfolios. Perttu’s equity team manages two PAB tracker funds for European & North American equities. LähiTapiola uses multiple sustainability filters and publishes its actual exclusion list for international equities even online for all its clients. Sakari explained that Finnish institutional investors expect also clear reports about the carbon footprint and the impact of their portfolios.
Claus explained that BNP launches only ESG-ETFs, but with different sustainability filters like e.g. the minimum tracking error approach for equities and fossil-free indices for corporate bond. Claus believes that many ETF clients tend to low carbon print portfolios even if they are technically not Paris-aligned.
Fintech Farm Helsinki was the local media partner of the event.
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