INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Investors could skip the new fund offer (NFO) of Axis ESG Equity Fund and wait for the new investment strategy to build a track record,
according to financial planners
that the universe of stocks available to invest is very low and no long-term track record in India, investors should wait for the fund to
the main criteria to evaluate investments.
The Axis ESG Fund, which will be managed by Jinesh Gopani, will build a portfolio of companies
Firstly, he will exclude sectors that are deemed harmful from a societal perspective like liquor, tobacco and defence
At the second level of filtering it will stay away from stocks that throw up ESG red flags
At the third level, the fund house will carry out a detailed qualitative ESG review of each company complementing its fundamental
research.
Axis ESG fund is a bit different from other ESG funds as it will invest up to 30% of its corpus in foreign stocks
in the space have outperformed their benchmark indices
SBI Mutual Fund, which has reclassified one of its equity schemes as an ESG fund after Sebi norms on categorization of mutual funds, has
returned 16.55% in the last one year
The S-P BSE Carbonex TRI returned 10.62% in this period.