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We place great value on responsible investment and have had specialist teams at Morley, the group's fund management business, dedicated to both socially responsible investment (SRI) and corporate governance for six years now. They really understand the impact that social, environmental and governance issues have on investments and show our commitment to effective and responsible investment in two ways.
The most obvious sign of this commitment is the six specialist SRI funds that the SRI team manages. The SRI analysts do extensive research and screening to make sure that these funds are invested in companies that are leading the way in environmental and social practices or in offering products and services that promote and support sustainable development. Morley's SRI team broke its 2006 target by managing over 1.1 billion of retail and institutional SRI funds. The team's deep involvement in SRI is also shown by the papers that the members research and write on various sustainable investment themes. This year, these included the impact of climate change on the insurance industry, biofuels, and healthcare provision for our ageing population.
We also use our influence to promote responsible business practice generally, by encouraging all the companies that we invest in to show responsible business behaviour and by raising and monitoring issues such as environmental liability, corporate governance and human rights. The SRI and Corporate Governance teams have a mandate to engage with companies on behalf of all of Morley's assets under management and we take a global approach to engagement. In 2006 we continued to exert our shareholder voting rights – voting against companies with inadequate corporate governance policies and performance. We voted at 1,223 shareholder meetings in 2006. At 515 of these meetings we voted against or abstained on at least one resolution. A copy of our policy is available on our website on www.morleyfm.com.
Morley's SRI team also supports micro-finance initiatives. It participated in the successful raising of $60 million from investors in the UK, Europe and the US to lend to micro-finance institutions (MFIs) for a period of five years. MFIs provide people with small, collateral-free loans at reasonable interest rates. Specifically, Morley purchased a 1.5 million note for one of Norwich Union's sustainable future funds, which helped create the foundation for the entire structure. This initiative will finance approximately 300,000 micro-loans in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia over the five-year life of the structure.
Morley build micro-loans foundations
Our commitment to socially responsible investment is not just confined to the UK – we offer various SRI funds around the world. In Australia, for example, Aviva's Navigator platform has seven specific ethical funds. And in Italy last year we introduced the first investment in a socially responsible fund, with the Aviva European Socially Responsible Equity Fund. This fund aims to get good returns by investing in companies that are committed to long-term growth, but without harming society or the environment. Since 1989, Delta Lloyd Group has been managing the Triodos SRI funds. Customers of Delta Lloyd Group can choose to allocate part of the investment component of their insurance policies to these SRI funds.
