Showing 1 to 27 of 27 results.
Last quarter I visited infrastructure companies in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. The trip included visits to ten corporate head offices and three site tours. This paper seeks to share some of the key findings from my meetings with Japanese passenger rail and utility companies.
The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) for the European Union Mandates the disclosure of the Principal Adverse Impacts (PAI) that investment decisions have on sustainability factors.
The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) requires asset managers to report on up to 20 Principal Adverse Impact (PAI) indicators. PAIs are the negative impacts caused by a firm or an asset on the environment and society.
This article focuses on three of the PAIs related to Biodiversity Areas, Emissions to Water, and Hazardous and Radioactive Waste. Each PAI provides details about the measures, some of the challenges related to them, and how investors may use the information they provide.
We examine the characteristics and trend of a well-known measure of quality - Profitability. Firstly, we discuss some of the reasons why it is a useful measure and why it might be persistent through time. It is a strong contributor to alpha, both on the long and short sides.
From report writing and gathering information to the more technical side of pattern recognition and natural language processing, David Walsh, Head of Investment at RQI Investors recently joined Ausbiz to highlight how AI will affect wealth and investment management.
We believe financial markets, critical to society’s ability to function, are under threat. For too long, it has been widely accepted that short-term performance, growth, risks and financial returns should be maximised at the expense of environmental and social outcomes.
Concentration in equity markets has reached unprecedented levels. While this has driven remarkable returns for a narrow slice of the market, it raises critical questions about diversification, valuation, and risk for equity investors.
2024 was a good year for global listed infrastructure. Strong earnings for energy midstream and a step-change in the earnings growth outlook for utilities helped the asset class to shrug off rising bond yields and political uncertainty.
The cascading impacts of climate change and society’s overexploitation of the land and sea is giving rise to unprecedented devastation of nature and biodiversity. In the last 50 years, there has been a devastating 69% drop in wildlife populations[1]. The unfolding crisis is risking the very foundations of our economy, society and life itself, impacting humankind’s food security and access to clean water and air.
The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is affecting ever expanding fields of human activity. And the way we invest is no exception. It’s never been more timely for investors, advisors and investment managers to take deep stock of the impacts, real and potential, of AI, so we can better prepare to manage them – whether by leveraging opportunities, managing new risks or, more likely, both.
We are entering a new era. The year 2024 will be unpredictable and clouded by many uncertainties. It will be marked by geopolitical risks, the ongoing taming of the inflation beast, and how the US Presidential election will impact markets.
In September 2023, I met more than 30 global listed infrastructure companies and stakeholders from the UK, Europe and China. The following travel diary summarises my impressions and findings from these meetings.
Our recent paper on Extreme Concentration focussed on the US (and so Developed Markets). This was the natural as the central issue of concentration was among the top 10 stocks in the US, among them, the “Magnificent 7”.
Public policy support for infrastructure investment to remain strong globally, especially for the replacement of aged infrastructure assets and buildout of renewables. Utilities are in the midst of a multi-decade structural growth story. But higher capex needs to be managed in the context of affordability, reliability and sustainability. Earnings likely to be more resilient than global equities, albeit growth tempered by higher debt costs and increased regulatory and political risks. We expect the asset class to deliver mid-single digit EBITDA, EPS and DPS1 growth over the next two years despite a potentially challenging economic backdrop.
Recently I attended the largest US utility conference, the 2024 Edison Electric Institute (EEI) Financial Conference, in Hollywood, Florida. I met with management teams from 26 regulated electric and gas utility companies.
The global political economy is rapidly evolving. The rules, norms and institutions that govern interactions between nation states are being upended, and the nature of capitalism is changing again. Having evolved in the past from laissez‑faire to Keynesianism to free market neoliberalism, it is now turning to nationalism with more state intervention.
Global listed infrastructure underperformed in 2023 owing to rising interest rates and a shift away from defensive assets. Relative valuations are now at compelling levels. Infrastructure assets are expected to see earnings growth in 2024 and beyond, aided by structural growth drivers.
After decades of flat electricity demand for US utilities, the industry is now seeing unprecedented demand as growth in data centers / AI, electrification, onshoring and electric vehicles outweighs energy efficiency gains. One utility executive stated: “Seeing all these customers wanting 24/7 load and willing to pay for it – it is every utility’s dream”.
We recently spent several weeks in the US visiting listed infrastructure management teams, regulators, politicians, industry associations and conducting asset tours. The following paper provides an overview of our findings.
Over the last decade the electricity sector has been at the forefront of decarbonisation, ahead of transport, industry and agriculture.
2024 was a year marked by global inflation and economic growth concerns against a backdrop of worldwide elections. As we head into 2025, volatility will remain an enduring constant.
Corporate culture is a powerful dynamic in a company. It is the set of beliefs and attitudes about the way things are done, and so is a key component of many corporate functions.
The energy crisis in Europe has boosted global demand for LNG. Global listed infrastructure companies pioneered the US LNG industry, investing US$50 billion since 2010. The energy crisis is providing an opportunity for LNG to secure its role as a transition fuel. With reliability and security of supply increasingly front of mind, US LNG exporters stand to gain market share, underpinning a further US$50 billion of investment over the next decade. An increased need for natural gas infrastructure will also benefit the broader North American midstream sector.
This paper asserts that macro towers will remain at the heart of a modern, mobile data communications network despite the continual development of new technologies.
Concentration in equity markets has reached unprecedented levels, particularly in the United States. A select few mega-cap stocks, colloquially referred to as the "Magnificent 7," now dominate market indices, reflecting a convergence of technological innovation, speculative enthusiasm, and the allure of generative AI.
We crossed six US states meeting over 70 infrastructure management teams as well as customers and suppliers at three conferences. We visited three corporate head offices, several regulators and toured the country’s largest nuclear power plant.
 |  |
|---|