A Letter of Introduction From The Portfolio Managers

At Brown Advisory, we are deeply committed to sustainable investing. We firmly believe that there does not have to be a trade-off between strong performance and smart investments that help address society’s trickiest sustainability challenges. 

For a number of our sustainable investment strategies, we issue formal reports each year to keep clients informed about how those strategies are generating positive impact. Enclosed is our 2021 Impact Report for the Sustainable Core Fixed Income strategy.

This report includes a review of how we conduct and use ESG research to drive returns, and how the investments in our portfolio are helping to create positive environmental and social outcomes. We also discuss how we engage with issuers—sometimes for ESG due diligence and impact purposes, other times in an advisory capacity with issuers seeking guidance on structuring labeled bond offerings—and how we participate in the broader sustainable investing community.

We are pleased to report continued progress and advancement of our sustainable investment initiatives at the firm, in particular our work to develop new investment strategies for our clients. In fixed income, we launched our first global bond strategy, the Global Sustainable Total Return Bond strategy, and brought in a veteran global fixed income team to work with us and build it from the ground up as a sustainable solution for clients. 

The build out of our team in recent years, especially in terms of sustainable investing knowledge, makes it a bit easier for us to bid farewell to portfolio manager Tom Graff; Tom is taking on an exciting new opportunity in the fintech space and we are thrilled for him. Our portfolio management team going forward is Amy Hauter (who has served as portfolio manager since the strategy’s inception, and is also the firm’s Head of Sustainable Fixed Income), Colby Stilson and Chris Diaz; Colby and Chris also serve as managers of our Global Sustainable Total Return Bond strategy, alongside Ryan Myerberg, and play key fixed income leadership roles at our firm. This team has worked closely together for more than a year across multiple fixed income strategies, and we are confident that it can continue to generate attractive performance and impact for our Sustainable Core clients.

Our firm also launched several equity strategies over the past year; our Sustainable International Leaders, Sustainable Income and Social Inclusion strategies collectively help us offer more options to clients seeking exposure to specific styles, regions and themes within a sustainable investment program.

As always, we thank our fundamental and ESG research teams, who work tirelessly to ensure that our investment decisions are informed by trustworthy ESG data, and by clear viewpoints about what we can infer from that data. Additionally, we thank all of our colleagues across the firm for embracing sustainable investing principles so enthusiastically, and most importantly our clients for entrusting us with their capital.

We hope you find this report informative, and we welcome a conversation with you about the work we are doing.

 

Sincerely,

 

Amy Hauter, CFA
Portfolio Manager

Chris Diaz, CFA
Portfolio Manager
 

Colby Stilson
Portfolio Manager

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Brown Advisory entities included are: Brown Advisory LLC, Brown Investment Advisory & Trust Company, Brown Advisory Ltd. and Brown Advisory Trust Company of Delaware, LLC.