UBS Contributes to Impact Investing Fund with Gender Lens Overlay

Rethink Impact, invests in social impact companies with a gender lens. The fund is particularly focused on the health, education, environmental sustainability and economic empowerment sectors and includes companies that merge strong businesses with a social mission. Rethink Impact investors span the majority of the states across the country, are balanced in terms of gender and are a mix of individuals, foundations, universities and beyond.

Impact investing aims to generate a defined positive social or environmental impact as well as a competitive return. It is an attractive area for investors who wish to align their portfolios with their values.

"We prioritize financial returns above all else for our clients," said John Amore, Managing Director UBS Wealth Management Americas, "Yet fundamentally, we believe in companies whose social impact enhances their financial returns and whose financial returns fuel their social impact. Our clients increasingly want financial advice as well as innovative solutions to utilize their wealth and resources to address societal issues. As the world's largest global wealth manager, we are well positioned to guide them and felt that Rethink Impact was a compelling solution given our clients' investment and impact goals."

Female-led business outperform
Research shows that female-led businesses outperform. On average, firms with 30% female leadership see net revenues 15% higher than firms with no female leaders.² Despite this, little capital goes to female-led firms, with only 3% of venture dollars going to companies with a female CEO³ and fewer than 6% of people making investment decisions at venture capital firms are women.⁴

Jenny Abramson, Founder & Managing Partner of Rethink Impact said, "My partner, Heidi Patel, and our team believe that the next generation of extraordinary companies will find success through their diversity coupled with relentless pursuit of mission, for the benefit of all communities. There has never been a better time to enter the field of impact investing. The problems that these companies address are still so vast, but now we’re seeing more and more seasoned entrepreneurs partnering up with top engineering talent to tackle these issues head on, in a scalable and sustainable way. This creates a ripe opportunity for investment for firms that really understand the sector.”

As of 31 December 2016, UBS's sustainable investments increased to CHF 976 billion compared with CHF 934 billion as of the end of 2015, representing 35% of the firm's total invested assets. Major increases in relative terms were observed among the integration and impact investments, which increased 64% and 228%, respectively, compared with 2015.

(Press release)