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Manulife Investment Management Shares Analysis and Investment Insights within Natural Capital, TCFD and SRI Reports
TORONTO, Aug. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Manulife Investment Management (Manulife IM), the world’s largest manager of natural capital with over $16 billion in assets under management in timberland and agriculture1, has recently released three reports detailing how it incorporates financially material climate- and nature-related investment considerations into its asset management and portfolio construction capabilities. Interested market participants can use the insights from Manulife IM’s Natural Capital Sustainability report, Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) report and Sustainable and Responsible Investing (SRI) report, for deeper awareness about sustainable investing and to assess various investment risks and opportunities across public and private market asset classes.
The reports highlight Manulife IM’s commitment in seeking to deliver strong long-term investment performance, the importance of natural capital to human health, and the opportunity for timberland and agriculture assets to bring value to portfolios and to the planet. As an example, within its climate and natural capital investment solutions, Manulife IM has a strategy that provides investors with an opportunity to invest in timberlands in a way that creates high integrity carbon credits through enhanced management practices which purposefully add to the stored carbon in the forest.
“We are excited to share these reports with market participants as we believe that climate-related risks and other sustainability factors can have a material effect on long-term financial value and, as a result, on our clients’ investment objectives,” said Paul Lorentz, President & CEO of Manulife IM. “Throughout all of our investment processes, we seek to incorporate all financially material risks, including sustainability factors, as our primary goal is to enhance the returns of the capital we manage on behalf of our clients.”
Manulife IM’s most recent Natural Capital Sustainability report highlights the importance of natural capital to institutional investment portfolios, the dependency the world has on these assets, and how these investments can create value beyond the physical products they generate. Highlights include:
- Manulife IM’s timberland investment properties planted over 50 million seedlings, produced lumber to build more than 100,000 houses, enough fiberwood to make approximately 2.2 million tons of paper, and yielded enough biomass to produce electricity for the equivalent of 1,500 American homes for a year;
- Manulife IM’s integration of regenerative practices across its agriculture portfolio continues to focus on producing more food with a smaller footprint. During 2023, 100% of client properties reported using at least one regenerative practice and 78% of properties use four or more regenerative practices; and
- Progress reports on the firm’s five nature targets, aligned with the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge that are on track to be fulfilled by 2025. The targets include improving collaboration and knowledge sharing on assessment methodologies, incorporating biodiversity into ESG policies, assessing the impact of investments on biodiversity, using science-based targets to improve biodiversity impact, and annual reporting to measure and assess progress toward biodiversity goals.
“Natural capital is not just a concept; it’s a measurable and monetizable reality that has intrinsic value in supporting the global economy,” said Brian Kernohan, Chief Sustainability Officer, Manulife Investment Management. “We believe nature is a mispriced asset that provides true economic and societal value for the benefit of all.”
The latest TCFD report outlines how Manulife IM incorporates climate-related risks and opportunities into investment decisions through appropriate governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets.
Highlights from the TCFD report include:
- 90% of Manulife IM ‘s global real estate equity portfolio earning certification of a green building standard, such as LEED, ENERGY STAR, or BOMA BEST;2
- Manulife IM removing an estimated 1.5 million tons of CO2e from the atmosphere by its managed forests and farms on a five-year rolling average; and
- Manulife IM seeks to increase access to the number and variety of sustainable investing options available to its clients.
Manulife IM’s latest SRI report provides insight into the firm’s approach to sustainable investing, including its governance, stewardship information, its scorecard from the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), and other sustainability milestones and outcomes.
Highlights from the SRI report this year include the firm’s:
- Publication of its inaugural nature report aligned with the recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), outlining the firm’s approach to managing nature-related risks and opportunities in its timberland and agriculture businesses;
- Achievement of a GRESB 5 Star rating for the sixth consecutive year;3
- Formalization of its sustainable investing strategy for its private equity and credit platform, which included establishing near-term priorities and longer-term commitments;
- Development of a firmwide client-directed exclusions framework; and
- Publication of its water statement, which recognizes the fundamental importance of water to human health, livelihoods, ecosystems, the global economy, and the future of asset management.
“As we navigate this dynamic space, our reporting looks to provide comprehensive insights to help drive positive change and foster long-term sustainability through our investment strategies. We’re committed to continue enhancing our reporting so that all our stakeholders can get a clear picture of our efforts to manage climate impact and risk exposures as well as enhance long-term value creation,” concluded Mr. Kernohan.
Please find more information about Manulife IM’s approach to sustainable investing online here: https://www.manulifeim.com/institutional/global/en/sustainability.
About Manulife Investment Management
Manulife Investment Management is the brand for the global wealth and asset management segment of Manulife Financial Corporation (NYSE: MFC). Our mission is to make decisions easier and lives better by empowering investors for a better tomorrow. Serving more than 19 million individuals, institutions, and retirement plan members, we believe our global reach, complementary businesses, and the strength of our parent company position us to help investors capitalize on today’s emerging global trends. We provide our clients access to public and private investment solutions across equities, fixed income, multi-asset, alternative, and sustainability-linked strategies, such as natural capital, to help them make more informed financial decisions and achieve their investment objectives. Not all offerings are available in all jurisdictions. For additional information, please visit manulifeim.com.
It should not be assumed that any ESG or sustainability initiatives, standards, or metrics described herein will apply to each asset in which Manulife Investment Management invests or that any ESG or sustainability initiatives, standards, or metrics described have applied to any individual prior investment of Manulife Investment Management. There is no guarantee that any initiatives or anticipated developments described herein will ultimately be successful or achieve anticipated outcomes. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors are only some of many considerations that Manulife Investment Management takes into account when making investment decisions, and other considerations can be expected in certain circumstances to outweigh ESG considerations. Any ESG or sustainability initiatives described will be implemented with respect to a portfolio investment solely to the extent Manulife Investment Management determines such initiative is consistent with its broader investment goals. Individual portfolio management teams may hold different views and make different investment decisions for different clients, and views may change over time. Investors should always read the current investment services information or fund offering documents before deciding to select an investment manager or to invest in a fund.
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IPE research, as of February 2024. Ranking is based on total natural capital assets under management (AUM), which includes forestry/timberland and agriculture/farmland AUM. Firms were asked to provide AUM and the as of dates vary from 12/31/2022 to 12/31/2023. |
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2. |
Based on square footage of the gross floor area or building size, of properties in the global portfolio. Totals from different certification standards do not sum as properties with multiple certifications are only counted once. Certifications are provided by LEED, ENERGY STAR Certification, BOMA BEST, GBCA Green Star, BCA Green Mark, NABERS, CASBEE, BOMA 360, and Fitwel. |
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Based on GRESB results released October 2023 that cover the 2022 time period. Manulife Investment Management paid a per fund submission fee, per year. The GRESB Rating is an overall measure of how well sustainability issues are integrated into the management and practices of companies and funds. For more information about the GRESB Real Estate Assessment, please see gresb.com/nl-en/real-estate-assessment. |
Asia:
Carl Wong
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North America and Europe:
Elizabeth Bartlett
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Fintech PR
Elliott Criticizes the Republic of Korea’s Decision to Continue to Challenge the US $100 Million Arbitral Award at the Expense of Its Citizens
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Sept. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Elliott Investment Management L.P. (“Elliott”), today issued the following statement:
On September 12, 2024, the Republic of Korea (“ROK”) filed court papers to appeal the High Court of England and Wales’s (the “English Court”) dismissal of its application to set aside the US $100 million Arbitral Award (“Award”). Elliott will continue to vigorously defend the Award and its rights under the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (the “Treaty”).
The Award was issued against the ROK in June 2023 to compensate for the damages Elliott suffered when the ROK government corrupted the Korea National Pension Service’s decision-making process in relation to the controversial 2015 Samsung Merger. The arbitral panel found that the ROK’s intervention – which resulted in numerous criminal convictions of government and Samsung officials – violated the investor protection provided under the Treaty.
The ROK’s continued refusal to honor the Award is not surprising yet deeply wrong-headed, particularly given that the ROK has already attempted and failed to set aside the Award. The English Court dismissed the ROK’s application at the threshold without even hearing the merits, issuing a comprehensive judgment after the hearing that was held in London in July 2024.
Elliott encourages the ROK to reconsider its decision to appeal the English Court’s ruling. The ROK’s actions undermine its efforts to build a reputation as a fair, transparent and trustworthy capital market, further perpetuating the “Korea Discount.” Additionally, the ROK’s ongoing refusal to honor the Award is only increasing the burden on Korean taxpayers, as interest on the Award continues to accrue at a rate of more than US $10,000 every day, along with the potential for further cost liability arising from the ROK’s appeal. The ROK should stop trying to distract the Korean public from the government’s own corrupt conduct and mistakes. Rather than further increasing the cost its citizens will ultimately have to bear, it should comply with the judgment and put this episode behind it.
More information regarding this matter can be found on the website of the Permanent Court of Arbitration by following the link below:
https://pca-cpa.org/en/cases/197/
About Elliott
Elliott Investment Management L.P. (together with its affiliates, “Elliott”) manages approximately $69.7 billion of assets as of June 30, 2024. Founded in 1977, it is one of the oldest funds under continuous management. The Elliott funds’ investors include pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, foundations, funds-of-funds, high net worth individuals and families, and employees of the firm.
Media Contacts:
U.S.
Casey Friedman
Elliott Investment Management L.P.
T: +1 212 478 1780
[email protected]
London
Alice Best
Elliott Advisors (UK) Limited
T: +44 203 009 1715
[email protected]
Seoul
Jin Kim
Nine Crosby
T: +82 2 866 9455
[email protected]
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Fintech PR
REALTY ONE GROUP INTERNATIONAL’S PRESIDENT, CORY VASQUEZ, TAKES REINS IN NEW ERA OF GROWTH
Network of Raving Fans Fuels the Opening of New Realty ONE Group Locations Around the World
LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif., Sept. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Realty ONE Group International, a modern, purpose-driven lifestyle brand and ONE of the fastest-growing franchisors in the world, is ambitiously entering a new era of growth pioneered by a dream team of leaders, including its new president, Cory Vasquez.
The UNBrokerage, as it’s known in real estate, just surpassed 20,000 real estate professionals worldwide as the brand’s popularity continues to soar because of its 100% commission model and comprehensive offering of business coaching, support, tools and marketing.
“We know we have the model of now and of the future and for so many Brokers who are nervous and uncertain, this is an easy plug-and-play to take their office and their real estate professionals to the next level,“ said Kuba Jewgieniew, CEO and Founder of Realty ONE Group International. “I’m proud of how this executive team, with Cory as our new President, is leading with calm and cleverly innovating new ways to keep growing the brand so we can help more people achieve greater success faster.”
Vasquez and industry legend Vinnie Tracey have been Co-Presidents for the last few months until Tracey’s official retirement this week. Tracey will remain an advisor to the thriving brand who recently welcomed 1,200 real estate professionals across ten branches in Florida last month. The conversion of ONE of the country’s top independent brokerages is proof that more entrepreneurs see Realty ONE Group as the model of the future.
Vasquez has almost thirty years of marketing, communications and management experience, nearly two decades of which are in real estate.
Realty ONE Group International claimed the No. 1 spot for real estate franchisors for the third year in a row on Entrepreneur’s highly competitive 2024 Franchise 500® list. The only modern, lifestyle brand in the industry now has more than 20,000 real estate professionals in more than 450 locations in 49 U.S. states, Washington D.C. and 20 more countries and territories.
Learn more at www.OwnAOne.com.
About Realty ONE Group International
Realty ONE Group International is one of the fastest growing, modern, purpose-driven lifestyle brands in real estate whose ONE Purpose is to open doors across the globe – ONE home, ONE dream, ONE life at a time. The organization has rapidly grown to more than 20,000 real estate professionals in over 450 locations across 20 countries and territories because of its proven business model, full-service brokerages, dynamic COOLTURE, superior business coaching through ONE University, outstanding support and its proprietary technology, zONE. Realty ONE Group International has been named the number ONE real estate brand by Entrepreneur Magazine for three consecutive years and continues to surge ahead, opening doors, not only for its clients but for real estate professionals and franchise owners. To learn more, visit www.RealtyONEGroup.com.
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SINGAPORE, Sept. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — HTX Ventures, the global investment division of HTX, today released its latest research analysing Bitcoin’s potential and challenges in the field of Bitcoin decentralized finance (BTCFI). The report, titled Exploring the BTCFI Rabbit Hole from the Perspective of Bitcoin’s Programmability, aims to help readers understand the BTCFI sector better, by exploring the evolutionary path of Bitcoin programming, delving into how Bitcoin programming can support various BTCFI applications, showcasing the current real-world BTCFI implementation scenarios, and explaining the underlying logic of BTCFI’s future growth and adoption.
HTX Ventures has been contributing to BTCFI for a long time. As stated in its 2024 Half-Year Investment Report, BTCFI is highlighted as one of HTX Ventures’ six key investment directions in 2024. Some of HTX Ventures’ portfolio companies in the BTCFI sector include Babylon, BounceBit, COREx, and more.
The new report once again shows HTX Ventures’ interest in BTCFI. It begins with the foundations of the Bitcoin contracts, which were laid fourteen years ago by Satoshi. Understanding the basics of Bitcoin programming involves several concepts, including Transaction Outputs (TXO), Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO), scriptSig, and Opcodes. “Bitcoin script programming is about programming money and enabling a specific amount of money to respond to particular input data. By designing the scriptPubKey, opcodes, and the interaction process between users, we can offer cryptographic guarantees for the key state transitions of Bitcoin contracts, ensuring the contracts’ proper execution,” the report points out.
There are some mechanisms to be used to enable the implementation of different types of transactions, including MultiSig, Timelocks, Hashlocks, Flow Control, and SIGHASH. The report explains, “the basic model of Bitcoin programming is where UTXO locking scripts specify verification conditions, unlocking scripts provide data, and opcodes in locking scripts indicate the verification program. The funds can be spent once the verification program is passed.”
There are some core limitations, however, such as only a few verification programs being available, Bitcoin scripts having no computational power, and UTXO unlocking conditions being completely independent.
Unlike the computation-based Ethereum contracts, Bitcoin contracts are verification-based, which has brought many challenges in developing BTCFI products. Despite the difficulties, “over the ten years of developing Bitcoin contracts, the ingenious use of cryptographic algorithms and signatures has significantly enhanced privacy, efficiency, and decentralization, making BTCFI products possible,” the report states, and starts introducing Bitcoin programming milestones. Innovative tools, such as the Discreet Log Contract (DLC), Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT), and MuSig2 bring new solutions to the problems in Bitcoin programming, driving the development of BTCFI.
The Taproot upgrade activated in November 2021 was revolutionary for the Bitcoin ecosystem, allowing Bitcoin to hold in custody large-scale smart contracts with tens of thousands of signatories while concealing all participants and maintaining the size of a single-signature transaction. This makes more complex on-chain BTCFI operations possible and significantly improves privacy and transaction efficiency.
Such technological innovations pave the way for BTCFI’s further development. Then in January 2023, Ordinals were proposed, which aimed to assign each sat a unique identifier and attribute, so as to transform it into a unique NFT. The creation and trading of Bitcoin NFTs were realized, not only expanding the uses of Bitcoin but also allowing users to directly create and trade digital assets on the Bitcoin blockchain. This led to the introduction of BRC-20, a token system for on-chain recording and off-chain processing that uses JSON data’s ordinal inscriptions to deploy token contracts, mint tokens, and transfer them.
The naissance of Ordinals and BRC-20 created trading demand and blue-chip assets for BTCFI. More importantly, they offered many BTCFI projects new ideas based on indexer programming that enhanced Bitcoin’s contract capabilities.
Bitcoin’s programmability has come a long way and made great progress, forming a thriving BTCFI ecosystem with more and more application scenarios of BTCFI arising. The report lastly lists some notable BTCFI implementations, including BTC staking provider Babylon, asset issuance platforms Unisat and Magic Eden, lending protocol Liquidium, BTCFI scaling solution Fractal Bitcoin, and more.
The emergence of BTCFI applications indicates that its market potential is becoming evident. With Bitcoin becoming more and more mainstream, the market demand for BTCFI use cases will also increase, fostering a new financial ecosystem centered around Bitcoin. “The formation of this ecosystem will propel Bitcoin further beyond the ‘digital gold’ narrative, establishing it as an indispensable decentralized financial infrastructure in the global economic system,” the report concludes.
To read the full report, please visit: https://square.htx.com/htx-ventures-exploring-the-btcfi-rabbit-hole-from-the-perspective-of-bitcoins-programmability/
About HTX Ventures
HTX Ventures, the global investment division of HTX, integrates investment, incubation, and research to identify the best and brightest teams worldwide. With more than a decade-long history as an industry pioneer, HTX Ventures excels at identifying cutting-edge technologies and emerging business models within the sector. To foster growth within the blockchain ecosystem, we provide comprehensive support to projects, including financing, resources, and strategic advice.
HTX Ventures currently backs over 300 projects spanning multiple blockchain sectors, with select high-quality initiatives already trading on the HTX exchange. Furthermore, as one of the most active FOF (Fund of Funds) funds, HTX Ventures invests in 30 top global funds and collaborates with leading blockchain funds such as Polychain, Dragonfly, Bankless, Gitcoin, Figment, Nomad, Animoca, and Hack VC to jointly build a blockchain ecosystem. Visit us here.
Feel free to contact us for investment and collaboration at [email protected]
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