Perpetual commits $60m to flagship sustainability-focused fund

Perpetual has added Osmosis’s flagship sustainability strategy to its responsible investment multi-manager program, investing AU$60 million in the sustainability-focused fund.

The Osmosis Resource Efficient Core Equity Fund targets risk-adjusted returns over the MSCI World benchmark, seeking out companies deemed more resource-efficient than their sector peers.

Osmosis chief executive Ben Dear said the fund is ideally suited to investors with an environmental bent seeking better-than-benchmark returns.

Perpetual touts the fund as being ideally placed to “benefit from the transition to a more sustainable global economy”.

Launched in 2017, the fund boasts an impressive 30.69% return over the past three years (to end of February 2025), just 3.2% shy of the benchmark MSCI World (USD) NTR, and 13.5% over the past year (2.2% below the benchmark).

Osmosis is a UK-based investment manager targeting companies with proven sustainability credentials, assessing these publicly listed firms based on their carbon emissions, water consumption and waste generation.

Its flagship Core Equity portfolio, Osmosis notes, “takes advantage of the inefficiencies of market cap weighted strategies by closely replicating the factor exposures of the underlying benchmark with the active exposure being delivered through the Osmosis Resource Efficiency Factor”.

The strategy delivers an immediate reduction in carbon, water, and waste ownership in excess of 60% while remaining invested across the broader economy.

As well, the Fund also excludes tobacco and any companies that breach the UN Global Compact’s social and governance safeguards.

The fund’s research insights are sourced from an in-house team of environmental data experts tasked with analysing and ranking large companies “based on their sustainable actions rather than their targets or intentions”, Perpetual said.

Greg Kynoch, senior research analyst Perpetual Private welcomed the addition of the strategy, which he said was “aligned with our commitment to selecting specialist asset managers who incorporate responsible investment considerations as part of their investment strategies, in turn supporting the objectives and desires of a range of clients.”

“Osmosis’ disciplined approach to targeting more resource efficient companies within a benchmark-aware framework is an attractive inclusion within a portfolio seeking to deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns while simultaneously delivering against select ESG-related outcomes.”

The Perpetual Private investment brings Osmosis’ Australian assets under management to approximately US$2.4 billion (AU$3.8 billion). Its flagship Core Equity Range has attracted over US$17 billion (AU$24 billion) in assets since its launch seven years ago.

Perpetual Private is the wealth management arm of Perpetual Limited.