News Round Up

Mercer's new manager research process; St Laurence and the full year report

Monday, May 26th 2008, 5:57AM

Mercer's new manager research process
Mercer has recently further developed its manager research process to evaluate the extent of fund managers pro-actively integrating environmental, social and governance factors (ESG) into their mainstream investment process.

The move comes as institutional asset owners are becoming increasingly interested in whether managers behave as active owners of capital and whether they reflect the materiality of ESG in their investment decision-making.

Mercer's existing ESG research process has been expanded to rate all managers on their ESG capabilities at strategy level.

St Laurence and the full year report

St Laurence has announced a net surplus after tax of $12 million for the year ending 31 March 2008, compared to last year's results of $14.1 million.

Shareholder equity in St Laurence increased by 17% to $63.6 million, from $54.3 million last year, and included a shareholder contribution of $4.8 million. The equity ratio is now 18.7% (16.5% in 2007). Total assets increased to $340.1 million, with liabilities remaining relatively stable at $276.5 million.

St Laurence managing director Kevin Podmore says, "This is a sound result for the St Laurence parent company, and demonstrates the strength of our diversified funds management and finance business model. Investors in SLL are well-placed, backed by strong levels of shareholder equity."

Podmore said with the economy slowing throughout Australasia, "management and the board have prudently reviewed the entire lending portfolio and have taken additional provisions against individual loans as necessary."

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