NEI Investments today announced the launch of NEI Environmental Leaders, which will invest globally in environmentally sound and sustainable businesses. These include companies active in energy efficiency, alternative energy, resource recovery, water infrastructure and treatment, pollution control, waste management, environmental support services, and sustainable agriculture and forestry.
"This is an ideal juncture for an investment solution like this," Daniel Solomon, chief investment officer of NEI Investments, said in a release. "The inherent imbalances between finite environmental resource supply and the relentless demands of society and global growth are quite literally transforming industries and requiring companies to adapt in order to thrive in this new economy."
NEI has hired New York-based Impax Asset Management Ltd., an institutional asset manager with expertise in the areas of resource efficiency and environmental markets, to manage the open-end mutual fund. Impax is a wholly owned subsidiary of London-based Impax Asset Management Group PLC, which also has offices in Portland, Oregon, and in Hong Kong.
Impax's investment discipline involves seeking to identify mispriced companies that will benefit from changing demographics, urbanization, increasing consumption, and growing demands for energy, water and other resources. As a result of the firm's process, the NEI fund will exclude investments in fossil fuels.
The fund's co-portfolio managers are Bruce Jenkyn-Jones and Hubert Aarts. Jenkyn-Jones, who joined Impax in 1999, is the firm's managing director and head of publicly traded equities. Aarts, who joined Impax in January 2007, is a senior portfolio manager who also leads Impax's macroeconomic research process.
The management fee for the new fund is 2% for Series A, which has multiple purchase options. In addition, NEI charges an administration fee of 0.4% a year, which covers most fund expenses. Other series are available for fee-based accounts and purchases of at least $100,000.
