Rathbones' Harrison: Three factors to beat the index without using FAANGs

Quality, transparency and sustainability

Quality, transparency and sustainability are prerequisite factors for a company to make it into the Rathbone Global Sustainability fund, managed by David Harrison, who explained this is why the portfolio does not hold any of the FAANG stocks.

Harrison, who has managed the fund since its launch in July 2018, breaks sustainability down into two levels when positioning the portfolio.  He explained that alongside "avoiding bad actors" on an ESG level, companies must also be able to "demonstrate a clear positive impact", which the team measures relative to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Extracting US alpha outside the FAANG phenomenon These prerequisites, along with concerns about transparency, have led to the fund avoiding FAANGs, with discomfort around "workers' rights or working practices" and a lack of...