Pax World Funds

Pax World Management
Industry Investment management
Founded Portsmouth, New Hampshire (1971)
Headquarters Portsmouth, New Hampshire, U.S.
Key people
 Joe Keefe, CEO
Chris Brown, Chief Investment Officer
Julie Fox Gorte, Ph.D. SVP Sustainability Research
Products Mutual funds, exchange-traded funds
Number of employees
 50
Website Paxworld.com

Pax World Management LLC ("Pax World") is an American investment management company that seeks to deliver competitive long-term performance to its investors through a process called Sustainable Investing - the full integration of Environmental Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) factors into investment analysis and decision making. Pax World serves as investment adviser to Pax World Funds, a family of actively managed mutual funds; ESG Managers Portfolios, a series of multi-manager asset allocation funds developed in partnership with Morningstar, Inc Associates; and ESG Shares, a family of Sustainable Investing exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Pax World also provides separately managed accounts for institutional investors.[1]

History

Pax World launched the first socially responsible mutual fund in the United States in 1971.[2]

The company was founded by Luther Tyson[3] and Jack Corbett,[4] both of whom had worked on peace, housing and employment issues for the United Methodist Church. It was their desire to make it possible for investors to align their investments with their values. At the same time, they wanted to challenge corporations to establish and live up to specific standards of social and environmental responsibility. Their vehicle, the first broadly diversified, publicly available mutual fund to use social as well as financial criteria in the investment decision-making process, was the Pax World Fund, predecessor of what is now the Pax World Balanced Fund.[5]

In October 2006, the shareholders of the Pax World Funds approved an update and modification of the Funds' social criteria for the purpose of making them both more relevant and comprehensive. As a result of that shareholder vote, the management company and Board of Trustees of the Pax World Funds worked together to update the investment approach to focus on the integration of Environmental Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) factors into investment analysis and portfolio construction.[6] Pax World refers to this investment discipline as Sustainable Investing, which is both related to and distinct from Socially responsible investing.[7] Whereas socially responsible investing tends to define itself in terms of what it doesn't invest in (e.g., weapons, tobacco, alcohol and gambling), Sustainable Investing defines itself in terms of what it does invest in - companies with higher sustainability, or ESG, performance.[8]

In 2008, Pax World was fined $500,000 by the SEC for violating its rules on negative screens.[9]

References

  1. ↑ http://socialinvesting.about.com/od/srifundfamilies/p/PaxWorldFundsFamily.htm
  2. ↑ http://www.socialfunds.com/news/print.cgi?sfArticleId=2146
  3. ↑ Sarah M. Gantz, "Luther E. Tyson, 85; applied social activism to mutual fund investing" , obituary in Boston Globe, 22 May 2008
  4. ↑ http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/23234-Jack-Corbett-Remembered-Mourned-by-Pax-World-Family
  5. ↑ http://www.socialfunds.com/news/print.cgi?sfArticleId=2146
  6. ↑ http://www.socialfunds.com/news/print.cgi?sfArticleId=2146
  7. ↑ Principled Investing Gains More Fans, The Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2009 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124217061993612713.html
  8. ↑ http://www.socialfunds.com/page.cgi/sustainable_investing.html
  9. ↑ Socially Responsible, With Egg on Its Face, Ron Lieber, New York Times, August 22, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/business/yourmoney/23money.html?pagewanted=all

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