ValueAct Capital co-founder 58, Jeff Ubben, told the Financial Times that he is resigning from the investment fund he co-founded about two decades ago in San Francisco.
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‘The finances are already done. Everyone has bought from everyone else with low-cost debt. Everyone has maximized their margin. They have bought back all their shares. . . There is nothing there. Each industry has around three players. Elizabeth Warren is right.
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Ubben has already resigned as chief investment officer at the fund in 2017 and as CEO in early 2020, amid a round of changes in January at the activist hedge fund, and is now leaving entirely to launch a new environmental and social environment . impact investment company he calls Inclusive Capital Partners.
In an article published Tuesday by the FT, Ubben expressed some frustration with the status quo on Wall Street: “Companies, as it is governed today, with investors asking for more current returns and more buybacks, etc., are not working for the society or nature. . ”
ValueAct and Ubben had established a reputation as a hedge that sat on the friendlier end of the spectrum of investor activism. He said his efforts to invest in so-called impact investing, which is an investment style focused on generating social and environmental change as well as a return on investment.
Ubben told the FT that this style of investing did not naturally resemble traditional investing, so he decided to diversify and created his own fund.
The thematic investment, focused on environmental, social and government practices, or ESG, has thrived even in the context of the coronavirus pandemic that has infected more than 9 million people so far.
In fact, in the first four months of 2020, investors invested a record of at least $ 12.2 billion in funds characterized as ESG, according to investment research platform Morningstar Direct.
ESG funds have also posted better-than-average returns, despite this year’s wild run in markets that have pulled the S&P 500 SPX index
down 3% and the Dow Jones Industrial DJIA,
8.3% discount. More than 70% of ESG funds in all asset classes performed better than their counterparts during the first four months of the year, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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