Bloomberg Launches Buy-side Women’s Network

With the rise of the asset management industry in Asia, Bloomberg has launched a Buy-side Women’s Network, to form a community of like-minded senior female leaders from the buy-side industry across Asia.

Peter Grauer, Chairman of Bloomberg LP, hosted a lunch in Singapore with senior executives from some of Asia’s largest buy-side players to launch the network. The network aims to inspire top female leaders on the future of investing, and to inspire the next generation of buy-side professionals through Bloomberg Startup, an educational program targeting university students.

At the event, Peter Grauer shared his views on impact investing, a global investment trend in the market. He said,” The next-generation of investors are demanding more from their portfolios, and expect their investments to make a difference. They believe the power of their portfolios can be harnessed to positively impact the issues they care most about – building more diverse, more sustainable and higher-performing companies.”

Founding Members of the Bloomberg Buy-side Women’s Network include Virginie Maisonneuve, CIO of Eastspring Investments, Eleanor Seet, President of Nikko Asset Management Asia, and Liu Chunyen, CIO of AIA Singapore.

Virginie added,”I believe this is a pivotal moment for our industry – a time of great change and tremendous innovation. Over the next five years, Asia will lead the world both in the demand for asset management solutions, and in the supply of investible assets. Today, there is greater awareness of the need to create an economically efficient, sustainable global financial system which is essential for long-term value creation. I look forward to discussing these topics and tackling these challenges as part of the Buy-side Women’s Network.”

The discussion that followed centered on how to bring sustainable investing into the mainstream, what the barriers are, how the public and private sectors can work better together to facilitate the growth of sustainable and impact investing (SII), and how to bridge the large pools of dormant capital in Asia to new impact sectors.

According to Bloomberg data, sustainable and impact investing or SII assets under professional management rose 25% to $23 trillion from 2014 to 2016. The Global Impact Investing Network or GIIN defines impact investments as investments into companies, organizations and funds with the objective of generating an environmental or social impact alongside a financial return. Based on GIIN’s recent research, impact investing in Southeast Asia grew by more than 25% over the three years to 2016. Bloomberg Intelligence see ESG funds in Asian markets poised for growth, driven by governance reforms, and gender-focused funds on the rise.