Two major investment banks, Credit Suisse and JPMorgan, have recently experienced senior personnel changes in their research teams overseeing environmental, social and governance (ESG) research.
Recent ESG Research Personnel Moves
Last month, US investment bank JPMorgan recently named Jean-Xavier Hecker and Hugo Dubourg as its new co-heads of ESG equity research for its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. Hecker joins JPMorgan following more than 2 ½ years as an SRI analyst at Exane BNP Paribas and close to 4 years as a corporate governance and SRI analyst at Nataxis Asset Management and Nataxis. Mr. Duborg joined JPMorgan following a 3 year stint as a corporate governance and sustainability analyst at Exane BNP Paribas. Prior to his work at Exane, Mr. Duborg spent 2 ½ years as a corporate governance analyst at Proxinvest and an ESG analyst at EthiFinance. Hecker and Duborg will be based in JPMorgan’s Paris office.
Investment bank, Credit Suisse, also recently made a senior change to its ESG research team. Credit Suisse announced the appointment of Phineas Glover as head of environmental, social and governance (ESG) research for Asia-Pacific, based in Sydney, Australia. Prior to this announcement, Mr. Glover spent close to the last two years as Head of ESG Research Australia for Credit Suisse. Previously, Mr. Glover spent a little more than 1 year as Head of ESG Equity Research for Macquarie Group.
Our Take
One of the fastest growing segments of sell-side equity research in the past few years has been focused on environmental, social and governance (ESG) research. This is due, in large part, to the increased global popularity of ESG investing, which has grown by more than 34% between 2016 and 2019 to more than $31 trillion in assets under management. $17.5 trillion of this total is managed in “environmental, social and governance” funds, an amount that has risen more than two-thirds in two years.
ETFs account for a paltry $26 bln of global ESG assets, according to EPFR Global data, but have jumped from just a few billion dollars a decade ago. BlackRock, the world’s largest investment group, estimates that this amount will surge to $400 bln over the next decade.
The surge in ESG investing has prompted significant growth in the number of sell-side and independent research firms and analysts who are now producing ESG focused research – a factor that we suspect will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. Consequently, we would not be surprised to see significant ESG analyst moves and new hiring, like the ones seen recently from Credit Suisse and JPMorgan, in the coming years as ESG research remains one of the few growth areas in the research space.