For asset managers, stewardship is the responsible allocation, management and oversight of capital to create long-term value for clients and beneficiaries leading to sustainable benefits for the economy, the environment and society.
For us this means engaging with and monitoring the companies in which we invest to address risks and identify opportunities for our clients, and being transparent in our approach. It also means working with regulators and our industry peers to try to tackle systemic risks and promote a well-functioning global fixed income market.
To ensure we dedicate the necessary resources to stewardship, we make portfolio managers responsible for stewardship activities just as they are responsible for our investment process. Like ESG analysis, stewardship forms part of every manager’s ongoing performance appraisal. We believe there is no better way to integrate stewardship within our investment process.
TwentyFour is a signatory of the Financial Reporting Council’s UK Stewardship Code.
Read our Stewardship Code - 2023
We are active participants in collaborative efforts to optimise the overall functioning of fixed income markets and improve the quality of ESG data and reporting in our asset class. TwentyFour is a member of the European Leveraged Finance Association (ELFA) , which works to develop industry standards and best practice in leveraged finance markets such as high yield bonds and collateralised loan obligations (CLOs). We sit on ELFA’s CLO investor committee, which is currently working to standardise ESG data reporting for CLO transactions and develop a best practice guide for CLO managers on disclosing corporate ESG profiles and internal ESG frameworks. We are delighted to have contributed to the European Leveraged Finance Association’s CLO ESG questionnaire, designed to improve transparency, liquidity and efficiency in the CLO market. The questionnaire standardises the ESG data required by CLO investors from CLO managers and issuers into a single document to establish a gold standard in ESG reporting for the CLO market.
As a prominent investor in European asset-backed securities (ABS), TwentyFour is a regular advisor to the Bank of England and a member of its Residential Property Forum. We also work with the UK and European regulators on ad hoc matters, as well as advising the UK Treasury, the European Commission and several other EU finance ministries on ABS. We are also the only UK asset manager in the founding partnership of the Prime Collateralised Securities (PCS) initiative. TwentyFour founding partner Rob Ford is vice-chair of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) Securitisation Board and is into his fifth term as a member of its Executive Committee.
