With an uncertain geopolitical background and in the face of rising rates, inflation and a strengthening US dollar, insurance companies have been keeping a close eye on emerging markets, but have not always found the confidence to invest.
Amid these challenges, MetLife Investment Management (MIM) has refined its approach to sustainable investing in emerging market debt - including developing a proprietary ESG Engagement Portal.
Although fundamental research remains the cornerstone of MIM's emerging market debt investment process, the ESG Engagement Portal initiative has led to the public fixed income team becoming more selective over the past year.
In particular, the portal allows for the team to not take an ESG score at face value and explore changes that could positively impact issuer scores in the future. While MIM does not take a formal active ownership role of invested companies, the research team is willing to help influence the direction of corporate policy towards a more friendly ESG perspective.
The ESG Engagement Portal allows the MIM team to consider ESG in a deeper more meaningful way, which caught the judges eye and awarded MIM the IAR North America emerging markets manager of the year award.
