HSBC AM boosts ESG and alternative capabilities

The firm has hired sustainability heads and tapped AMP for an infrastructure team

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Rupert Walker

HSBC Asset Management (HSBC AM) has appointed Fatima Hadj as climate investment strategist, and Laëtitia Tankwe as head of sustainability implementation & assurance.

In a newly created role, Hadj will based in London and report to Stuart Kirk, global head of research & responsible investments.

She will lead HSBC AM’s climate change strategy, ensuring climate considerations are embedded across its investment platform, according to the UK asset manager. She will also work with clients to help shape their climate strategies and investment teams to help identify climate-related risks and opportunities in portfolios.

Hadj joins HSBC AM with two decades of across financial services and in supporting businesses to consider ESG factors from a risk and impact perspective.

She has held several senior roles in the banking and asset management industry, including Tikehau Capital, Standard & Poor’s, and Moody’s.

She has been the chair of the Principles for Responsible (PRI) ’s committee for ESG integration in securitised products since its creation, and is a member of the steering committee of the new collaboration between the Principles for Responsible Investment and the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative on bank loans and related products. Hadj is also a lecturer at Bocconi University on ESG integration in finance.

In another newly created role of head of sustainability implementation & assurance, Laëtitia Tankwe will focus on creating and delivering assurance frameworks for HSBC AM’s sustainability commitments to customers and industry partners. She will also coordinate some of our external industry activities.

She will be based in Paris and reports to Erin Leonard, head of sustainability.

Before joining HSBC AM, Tankwe was the responsible investment advisor to the president of the French public sector pension scheme, Caisse des dépôts Group, where she contributed to the definition and implementation of its responsible investment roadmap.

Prior to this she held advisory, consultant and analyst roles at Banque Populaire Méditerranée, BPCE, Secafi, Batirente and BNP Paribas. Tankwe has also held board-level roles on the UN PRI and FrenchSIF, as well as being a member of the Climate Action 100+ Steering Committee.

Infrastructure team

Separately, HSBC AM has expanded it alternatives capability with a new listed infrastructure equity team.

The team, which joins from AMP and is led by Giuseppe Corona, head of listed infrastructure equity, have worked together for five years and will report to Joanna Munro, CEO of HSBC Alternatives. The team will be split across London and Sydney.

Concurrently, it has launched a global infrastructure equity strategy, which will invest in a diversified portfolio of listed infrastructure assets across both developed and developing equity markets, using a decision-making process which embeds ESG.

The strategy will focus its investments in the communication, energy, transportation and utilities sectors. It will be offered to both institutional and wholesale clients globally (subject to local registration requirement), and meets Article 8 Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) classification.

In 2021, HSBC AM announced it was bringing together all of its existing alternatives capabilities under a single business unit, HSBC Alternatives, with a 150-strong team and combined assets under management and advice of $47bn. In September 2021, the firm hired an Asian real estate team based in Singapore.

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