Tower launches SRI product

Tower Managed Funds Limitedhas launched a socially responsible product with Norwegian fund manager Storebrand, the underlying manager of the product.

Known as the Tower Lighthouse Global Responsibility Fund, the retail fund will use both positive and negative screens to select its investments.

Planners can choose to invest their client’s funds in one of two ways, either with an entry fee of 0.4 per cent and a management expense ratio (MER) of 2 per cent, or to waive the entry fee and to pay the MER of 2.5 per cent.

“SRI’s tend to be priced higher than the average Australian shares or international share funds,” Tower Managed Funds Limited general manager Anthony Hunt says.

According to Hunt, the strongest feature of the fund is that investors will have access to Storebrand, a fund manager that is ranked third in the world of socially responsible fund managers (according to the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, MISTRA), and a pioneer of world’s best practice.

Tower launched its first SRI product, the Tower Australian Ethical Fund, in 1986 and now has some $74 million funds under management.

Hunt says following the 16-year track record success of this product, Tower was confident in launching a retail product.

“With this track record, we recognised our capability and wanted to extend to international ethical fund,” Hunt says.

He says while demand has historically been limited for SRI products, this is because a lot of planners are not on top of the screens that are used by SRI fund managers.

“It is an area that is starting to emerge that planners recognise they need to be on top of,” Hunt says.