IFA Magazine: 10 year retrospective: A conversation about the changing world of investment

Aziz is quoted in an article by Rebecca Tomes, editor of IFA Magazine.

Abdulaziz Alnaim, CFA, Managing Director at Mayar Capital reminds us that “Ten years ago, the idea of being a ‘Responsible’ global equity investor was something of an oddity.” As he explains “The prevailing mainstream belief of the investment community was the Friedman doctrine. Namely, that the goal of any executive is maximise returns to shareholders while conforming to the basic rules of society. If shareholders wanted to do some good in the world, they could do so by using the funds generated by maximising returns to whichever social initiative is close to their heart. The idea of corporate social responsibility was at the periphery of asset managers’ concerns. The narrow range of products that did cater to those who wanted ethical considerations on their investment decisions were invariably a subset of the standard portfolio with a subset of the alpha to match. The use of ethical ‘overlays’ stripping out parts of the ‘main’ portfolio. In those early days, we often found ourselves trying to combat the idea that the price of doing good was lower returns. The Mayar approach has always been to incorporate ethical concerns into the process, building a responsible portfolio from the ground up. This approach is increasingly being adopted as those ethical concerns are now recognised as risk factors that require scrutiny.”

Read the full article in IFA Magazine here.