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Fund to invest in gender diversity By Richard Milne Published: October 26 2009 02:00 | Last updated: October 26 2009 02:00
One of the first funds to focus on investing in companies with a high number of women in senior roles is to launch in the coming weeks, backed by Cherie Blair and the former prime ministers of Canada and New Zealand.
The Women's Leadership Fund, started by Zürich-based Naissance Capital, hopes to invest up to $2bn (£1.2bn) and take activist positions in companies with few or no women in executive or board roles.
The fund is an example of growing interest in gender diversity in companies and is based on studies suggesting businesses with a higher proportion of women in senior positions perform better .
"Is there an edge to be gained in investing in these kind of companies? We think so, and we're the first to do it," Daniel Tudor, the fund's project manager, said.
There have been other attempts, but the fund, which is made up of four men and three women, has a higher-profile backing with the likes of Ms Blair, wife of Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister.
However, the experience of a similar fund, Amazone Euro, is cautionary. Its assets have fallen to €3m (£2.8m) from a peak of €18m in 2007.
The fund should launch by the start of next month with seed capital of €1m.
Mr Tudor cited US chemical groups DuPont and Dow Chemical and Swedish retailer H&M as "good" companiescompared with French retailer Carrefour, where 11 per cent of hypermarket directors are women against 80 per cent of its customers.
The high profile of the directors would help with the activism, Kim Campbell, the former Canadian prime minister, said.
"We want to use leverage to push companies to do what is good for them."
Some are sceptical. A senior female director in Europe said: "It must be very hard to prove any connection between female leadership and results."