Sam Austin was featured in an article about our new Diverse Investment Manager Policy. Read on FIN News here.
Investment consulting firm NEPC announced today a new diverse investment manager policy that seeks to increase engagement with women- and minority-owned managers.
Specific goals outlined in the new policy include increasing the number of meetings with diverse firms by 10% in 2020, having diverse managers represent 10% of managers on the firm’s focused placement list by year-end 2021, including a diverse manager in searches “where a diverse manager rated 1 or 2 is available,” addressing responsiveness to diverse managers by providing preliminary feedback within three months of initial contact and implementing accountability toward diversity targets.
The new policy was formed through a collaboration between the NEPC research team and the firm’s diverse managers committee, which is made up of senior consultants and senior research professionals specializing in public markets and alternative investment strategies.
“Women- and minority-owned funds are still significantly underrepresented in the portfolios of institutional and high-net-worth investors, despite research that points to positive and, in many cases, superior investment performance of those funds,” said Sam Austin, partner and co-chair of the diverse managers committee, in a statement. “This new policy addresses that gap and is one piece of NEPC’s larger commitment to championing diversity and inclusion within the investment community.”
NEPC, which advises on more than $1 trillion in client assets overall, currently has $32.5 billion of client assets invested with diverse firms across 182 investment strategies and more than 43% of NEPC clients utilize diverse investment managers across public and private equities, hedge funds, private debt and private real estate, the firm said.