Spotlight on Ganesh Suntharam, Chief Investment Officer, Redpoint Investment Management
Global Thought Leader Spotlight
Ganesh Suntharam, Chief Investment Officer, Redpoint Investment Management
“In my role as Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at Redpoint, I am responsible for the overall delivery of our investment capability to clients, as well as the ongoing evolution of that investment capability over time. This involves collaborating with my colleagues across various functional areas (systems, data, research, portfolio management, trading, and operations) to ensure investment outcomes meet stated objectives.
“As CIO, I am also responsible for the evolution of the investment process helping coordinate strategic planning sessions, chairing the investment committee, and conducting and reviewing research. In my role as senior portfolio manager, I am responsible for the investment outcomes of Redpoint’s quantitative global alpha strategies including GLI, GREIT, SRI and ESG based variants.
“Among the key developments in our asset class in the last decade has been the significant progression in the conversation around Responsible Investment (RI).
“Embracing principles of Universal Ownership and Stewardship, superannuation funds and asset managers have transitioned from an awareness and appreciation of ESG to an endorsement of and commitment to the principles of Responsible Investment. As the Boards and Investment Committees within these organisations increasingly endorse RI principles, the task of implementation now falls onto the investment teams in these organisations to action these requirements.
“The task of integrating additional RI requirements into equity portfolios is complex, multi-faceted, and requires an extension to the traditional frameworks for constructing and blending portfolios. To date, the most common approach to integrating RI requirements has been to simply restrict the investment universe and screen out individual names that fall short on a particular set of RI criteria.
“However, as the market becomes more sophisticated in terms of Responsible Investment objectives, we are moving quickly towards a point where there is sufficient breadth and quality of data to create more targeted RI solutions. Utilising these new sources of data within a risk managed quantitative framework allows managers to deliver more innovative solutions that can trade off the competing requirements of return, risk, and RI objectives.
“The implications for investors of the very real and present challenge that global warming presents are that the global financial profession, along with the global community at large, have an important role to play in seeing the world transition to a less carbon intensive future. However, our role in this transition needs to go beyond the investment solutions available to us today. We need to think about how we can increase our capital allocation to those companies that either:
have patents, technology, or R&D spend that can help shape this future;
are contributing to the creation of this future through their existing business activities; and/or,
are already positioning their businesses for operating efficiencies within this future.
“If we can identify and allocate capital to companies with these characteristics, we play our financial part in helping the economy transition to this less carbon intensive future and in doing so, we naturally create opportunities to benefit from an investment in a group of companies that are better positioned for this expected future outcome. And, given the transition will potentially span several economic cycles with various risks along this path, making this investment in a diversified and risk managed framework will also allow us to maximise the risk-reward pay-off over this extended timeframe.”
Ganesh will be presenting on how to integrate responsible investment objectives into equity portfolios at Global Investment Institute’s upcoming Equities & Growth Assets Investment Forum, taking place on Wednesday, 7 September 2022 at the Westin, Melbourne CBD, Victoria.
To register your interest in attending, click here or for more information email zlatan.kapetanovic@globalii.com.au.
Ganesh Suntharam, Chief Investment Officer, Redpoint Investment Management
Ganesh is Redpoint’s Chief Investment Officer and lead portfolio manager for global equity strategies. Ganesh is chair of Redpoint’s Investment Committee and a member of its board. Ganesh co-founded Redpoint in 2011.
Prior to Redpoint, Ganesh was the Head of Quantitative investments at Perpetual where he was responsible for the quantitative business which included seven investment professionals. In this role, he helped establish a quantitative equities capability launching two long-short strategies and expand the existing long-only business. Prior to joining Perpetual, Ganesh worked at Barra International (now part of MSCI) providing financial consulting services to institutional fund managers, brokers and asset consultants.
Ganesh holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree from Sydney University, a Bachelor of Computer Science degree from Sydney University. Ganesh is a CFA charter holder and is a past president and current board member of the CFA Society of Sydney.
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