Responsible Investment
As a responsible institutional investor, Nomura Asset Management aims to realize a sustainable and prosperous society by helping clients to build wealth. In addition to helping clients build wealth through the asset management business, we support the creation of social value by the companies held in our portfolios by realizing a virtuous cycle of investment (investment chain) through engagement and other efforts.
Highlights
ESG assets under management
¥1.543 trillion
March 31, 2024
PRI Assessment Results
Received
the highest rating of "Five Stars" in 6 Modules
for Responsible Investment assessment of NAM's initiatives in 2022
(For 1 overall policy & 5 out of 6 direct operations modules* under a new evaluation system)
Total: 10 modules. Please refer the report below for the overall assessment including indirect operations.
Fundamental Approach
Nomura Asset Management contributes to the development of society by fulfilling our social responsibility of supporting the building of wealth of investors. Such activities include, proactive engagement with companies to enhance their corporate value (engagement activities), offering investment products identifying ESG issues and providing investment education.
We recognize that moves toward addressing ESG related issues are becoming increasingly important in supporting the virtuous cycle of the investment chain. As a responsible investor, we expect the companies in which we invest to manage their operations with an appropriate emphasis on material ESG related issues, while we ourselves also conduct our own business activities with a focus on ESG. More specifically, we are stepping up our initiatives to address issues related to climate change, natural capital, human rights, diversity and inclusion, value creation to realize well-being within society and corporate governance, and corporate social responsibility, based on the understanding that these are key long-term challenges. In March 2019, Nomura Asset Management published its ESG Statement, clarifying its efforts to promote initiatives related to ESG issues.
We will review this statement as necessary to appropriately reflect changes in the external environment and our approach to stakeholder engagement.
Driving Responsible Investment
ESG Integration
Nomura Asset Management considers corporate activities that contribute to solving the environmental and social issues indicated in the SDGs as new business opportunities and expect portfolio companies to reflect these activities in their management strategies. We believe that the supply of funds to companies from institutional investors will help resolve social problems and generate investment returns at the same time, thereby creating a virtuous cycle in the investment chain and helping to build a sustainable society. Meanwhile, our investment division is working to enhance integration, which is the incorporation of non-financial information in the investment process. This is based on our belief that a portfolio company’s management performance from a financial perspective and its approach to ESG, which is non-financial information, are closely related and impact one another. With respect to ESG assessment, which is the criteria for this, we give our own ESG ratings to portfolio companies based on ESG issues identified by our corporate analysts by individual sector and/or individual companies, as well as information on evaluation results from several external sources. We use these ratings in product origination and management.
ESG assessment is not limited to Japanese companies, as the scope also includes companies in developed countries in Europe and the Americas, as well as companies in Asia and emerging countries. We then revised the ESG Statement in both 2021 and 2022.
ESG Engagement
Nomura Asset Management regards engagement as an important activity for the improvement of enterprise value of portfolio companies.
Among the approx. 2,400 Japanese companies within our portfolios (as of December 31, 2023), for those deemed to warrant more in depth handling, Nomura Asset Management engages in dialogue specifically aimed at addressing ESG issues in addition to our regular engagement activities. In 2023, Nomura Asset Management had engagement meetings with a total of 911 companies, and about 1,670 topics were ESG-related.