Session I (Americas): Have Corporate Controversies Helped or Hurt Performance?

Industry researchers and practitioners have become increasingly sophisticated in determining how integrating best-in-class environmental, social, and governance (ESG) signals can impact portfolio exposures to traditional financial factors. Often, this approach focuses on how companies are managing ESG risks and opportunities, but many investors also choose to exclude certain companies from their portfolios due to ethical, reputational, financial, or other considerations. How do these exclusions affect portfolio performance over time?
 
 Join us for a webinar where we will discuss findings from the MSCI study “Have Corporate Controversies Helped or Hurt Performance? A Study of Three Portfolio Strategies,” which investigated the risk and return impact of excluding companies involved in events negatively impacting stakeholders. Did the occurrence of corporate controversies affect stock price over the ten year period? How did company size and the severity of the controversy affect returns?
 
 Agenda:
• The main investor objectives behind exclusions
• How MSCI ESG Research defines corporate controversy severity
• What was the result of applying exclusions on studied sample portfolios?
• Importance of tracking controversy severity beyond media coverage