The Glebe Group, the asset management arm of Sydney Diocese, has received the prestigious Ethical Fund of the Year award for 2003. As an ethical fund, this precludes investing in companies that do not promote the best interests of people – such as gambling, pornography, armaments, tobacco, alcohol and uranium mining.
Measured across categories including perfor-mance, portfolio sustain-ability, and Fund Manager sustainability, the award affirmed that recent years of strategy change and people investment has paid off.
Competing with the likes of AMP, Westpac and ING, the Glebe Small-Cap fund performed extremely well, yielding 41.2 per cent for the year, making it a leader among public companies listed outside the top 100 of the Australian Stock Exchange.
Despite the fund’s success, the investment year had its difficulties, including the after-effects of the war in Iraq.
However, the appointment of Brad Ware as portfolio manager, coupled with the work of colleague Ross Cooper, saw Glebe’s stock picks perform very well, contributing to the year-end victory.
Chairman of Glebe Asset Management, Rodney Dredge, praised the work of the investment team, including Mr Ware, Mr Cooper and head of Equities, James McSkim-ming, for achieving such an outstanding result. “This award proves we have been doing things right. We are capable of competing with and beating the best the market has to offer,” he said.