The IPO of Nongfu Spring, a bottled water brand in mainland China, broke the record of the subscription capital of HKEX on September 8, 2020: it was 1,147 times oversubscribed by more than 700 thousand investors. The listing made the owner of the brand, Zhong...
SVI start publishing today reports by Christina Lawandos on the current Lebanese situation from an ESG perspective. Christina is our contact in Lebanon, a local witness strongly engaged in sustainable topics. Unfortunately, what happened in Beirut has to do with very severe ESG topics: negligence,...
As the economy increasingly struggled amidst the COVID19 pandemic, many corporations halted their dividend plans but appeared instead more reticent in sacrificing their executive compensation plans. For instance, the cases of IAG, British Airways owner, and Ryanair Bonus payment to CEO Michael O’Leary bring forth ethical considerations on the...
JPMorgan is to investigate clients and staff over illegally obtained federal aid. The bank has nearly arranged $29bn of forgivable loans under the PPP, a business loan initiative established as part of the US $2.2tn economic stimulus package. It is difficult to believe that this happened...
"A relevant question we all need to ask ourselves as citizens, consumers, workers, savers, investors, in our daily life as well as when we are on holiday. Everything is tightly interconnected, the environmental disaster at the Mauritius and our personal habits at home", states Daniela...
MorganStanley, Citi and Bank of America have joined the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials, a global group composed of 70 financial institutions representing more than $10 trillion in assets, which aims to provide financial institutions with a common methodology to assess and measure greenhouse gas emissions. Morgan Stanley,...
Investors fear that firms’ financial statements do not represent the real long-term outlook for many businesses as only a minority of them accurately incorporate climate change risks. The oil and gas company BP has cut $17.5 billion off the value of its assets, reflecting the material...
Bolsonaro has imposed a ban on forest fires during the dry season and arranged military operations against deforestation practices. This decree comes after pressure from financial investors, international companies and foreign governments on the need to improve Brazil’s environmental commitment and to stop deforestation, a practice that is...
Australia’s Snowy Hydro 2.0, a pumped hydro storage project in the Snowy Mountains, has recently been approved by the federal government as an economic savior to bushfire-ravaged region and the COVID19 recession. However, several concerns arise from its economic and environmental costs. Australia has recently approved Snowy Hydro 2.0...
COVID19 has reaccelerated deforestation, with forest loss alerts increasing up to 77% compared to 2017-2019. As deforestation itself heightens the risk of future disease outbreaks, rural frontiers should be approached more holistically by taking into consideration the health of humans, animals and the planet. Despite a positive historical trend...
According to a recent study, institutional investors, among which BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity, JPMorgan, are responsible for increasing price volatility and mispricing in company stocks. Moreover, stocks with higher ownership by such investors show greater price drops during periods of market turmoil. The findings of this study provide...
Alphabet has launched one of the largest sustainable bond offerings to be ever recorded, devoted to funding ongoing and new green and social justice-oriented projects. Sustainable bonds are not without risk of social washing and investor monitoring is much needed. The Covid-19 pandemic has boosted the offering of socially-related bonds,...
The modern slavery case at Boohoo shows the importance of investigating firms' ESG practices more deeply. The Manchester-based online fast-fashion retailer Boohoo has launched an independent review of its domestic supply chain after the Sunday Times published an investigation affirming that workers manufacturing its products at a...
After the fraud scheme, Wirecard’s links to the Italian Mafia have also been discovered. The firm processed payments for Maltese gambling companies that laundered money for the Ndrangheta. A good ESG analysis would have been effective in detecting Wirecard's controversies. The German payment service provider Wirecard, which went bankrupt...