ThirtyNorth Investments Celebrates Women Impact Strategy’s One-Year Anniversary
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ThirtyNorth Investments Celebrates Women Impact Strategy’s One-Year Anniversary
Portfolio outperforms, exceeds benchmark by 3.5 percent
New Orleans – May 10, 2017 – ThirtyNorth Investments, LLC, a registered investment advisory firm founded in 1997, announced today the one-year anniversary of and performance for its Women Impact Strategy. The Women Impact Strategy, launched in April 2016, aims to capture the social and financial benefits of investing in companies with women represented on the board and in senior leadership.
The Women Impact Strategy gained 20.79 percent, net of fees, in the year since its inception, compared to its benchmark, the Russell 3000 Index, which returned 17.28 percent during the same timeframe. On its anniversary date, April 7, the Women Impact Strategy outperformed the Russell 3000 Index in 2017 to date, returning 6.07 percent net of fees, compared to 5.36 percent, respectively.
“We are excited to celebrate this milestone and are proud of the performance, which confirms our core belief that that financial rewards need not take a back seat to gender equality,” said Suzanne T. Mestayer, CIMA®, managing principal at ThirtyNorth. “We look forward to growing the Women Impact Strategy and urge all investors to consider gender-lens investing as an important and up-and-coming subset of impact investing.”
“Board gender diversity was clearly linked to higher stock performance in our research, and we believe investors and their advisors should pay closer attention to gender-lens investing,” said Blair duQuesnay, CFA®, CFP®, principal and chief investment officer at ThirtyNorth. “While the causality of the link between stock performance and board gender diversity remains unanswered, it’s clear that including women as board members and executives is more than a societal benefit – it makes good business sense as well.”
In addition to tallying performance, ThirtyNorth completed the annual rebalance of the portfolio in April. The rebalancing process entails in-depth analysis, ranking companies by sector on performance criteria and board membership. The portfolio is comprised of fifty stocks, purchased at equal weight, and mirrors the sector weighting of the Russell 3000 Index. These companies have a minimum of 20 percent female board members and at least one woman in the executive suite. The portfolio average is 30.4 percent female board members and 26.0 percent female executives. Four of the companies are run by female CEOs and seven have a female Chairman of the Board.
Visit ThirtyNorth’s recently updated website, www.ThirtyNorth.com for more information, and read the whitepaper, Impact of Women in Corporate Leadership, for detailed findings and research.
About ThirtyNorth Investments
For two decades ThirtyNorth Investments, LLC has provided high net-worth individuals and their families, retirement plan sponsors, and non-profit endowments and foundations with objective investment guidance. With its hands on the pulse of the capital markets and a nuanced understanding of the needs of diverse individual and institutional investors, ThirtyNorth leverages deep industry expertise to help its clients navigate the extraordinarily complex marketplace of investment opportunities.
Founded in 1997, ThirtyNorth is a registered investment advisory firm with offices in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is independent, employee-owned, and unaffiliated with any parent company. Being located outside of a major money center translates to more than just physical distance; it provides another layer of perspective and embeds independence into who we are at ThirtyNorth. The Firm does not receive commissions for the recommendation or sale of investment products to its clients, thus its driving motivation is to put clients’ goals first by providing objective investment advice.
• ThirtyNorth Investments, LLC, is registered as an investment advisor with the SEC and only transacts business in states where it is properly registered, or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements. SEC registration does not constitute an endorsement of the firm by the Commission nor does it indicate that the advisor has attained a particular level of skill or ability.
• All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk, and there can be no assurance that any specific investment or strategy will be suitable or profitable for a client’s investment portfolio.
• Performance results are presented net-of-fees and reflect the reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. Short-term results are much less reliable than returns generated over a longer time frame.
• Historical performance results for the Russell 3000 Index do not reflect the deduction of transaction and/or custodial charges or the deduction of an investment-management fee, the incurrence of which would have the effect of decreasing historical performance results. There are no assurances that an investor’s portfolio will match or outperform any particular benchmark.
