RobecoSAM Sustainable Water Equities I CHF

Dieter Küffer is the Head of the Thematic Investing team covering Water/Healthy Living/Biodiversity/Circular Economy. He has been Portfolio Manager for the RobecoSAM Sustainable Water Equities strategy since inception of the strategy in 2001, the year he joined Robeco. In the past, he has also managed several other thematic strategies at Robeco. Prior to joining, he led a team responsible for the management of actively managed equity mandates on behalf of Swiss institutional clients at UBS Asset Management in Zurich. He began his career as an investment counsel in the Private Banking Division of UBS in 1986. Dieter Küffer holds a federal diploma as a Swiss-Certified Banking Expert and is a CFA® charterholder. Amy Wanner-Thavornsuk is Co-Portfolio Manager of RobecoSAM Sustainable Water Equities strategy and also covering thematic research within the Thematic Investing Water/Healthy Living/Circular Economy/Biodiversity team. Prior to joining in 2019, she worked for 9 years at JPMorgan Assets Management in London, whereof 6.5 years in the same role covering emerging market equities. She has been in the Financial Industry for almost 15 years with previous work experience in investment banking and consulting. She started her career as an auditor at PWC in Bangkok back in 2003. Amy holds an BS in Finance & Accounting from the Chulalongkorn University in Thailand and an MBA from the CASS Business School, UK. She is a CFA® Charterholder.

The fund is established in Luxembourg and is subject to the Luxembourg tax laws and regulations. The fund is not liable to pay any corporation, income, dividend or capital gains tax in Luxembourg. The fund is subject to an annual subscription tax ('tax d'abonnement') in Luxembourg, which amounts to 0.01% of the net asset value of the fund. This tax is included in the net asset value of the fund. The fund can in principle use the Luxembourg treaty network to partially recover any withholding tax on its income.

Investors who are not subject to (exempt from) Dutch corporate-income tax (e.g. pension funds) are not taxed on the achieved result. Investors who are subject to Dutch corporate-income tax can be taxed for the result achieved on their investment in the fund. Dutch bodies that are subject to corporate-income tax are obligated to declare interest and dividend income, as well as capital gains in their tax return. Investors residing outside the Netherlands are subject to their respective national tax regime applying to foreign investment funds. We advise individual investors to consult their financial or tax adviser about the tax consequences of an investment in this fund in their specific circumstances before deciding to invest in the fund.

The fund's sustainable investment objective is to help mitigate the global challenges related to scarcity, quality, and allocation of water. Water and sustainability considerations are incorporated in the investment process by the means of a target universe definition, exclusions, ESG integration, and voting. The fund only invests in companies that have a significant thematic fit as per Robeco's thematic universe methodology. Through screening on both Robeco's internally developed SDG Framework and Robeco’s exclusion policy, the fund does not invest in issuers that have a negative impact on the SDGs, are in breach of international norms or where products have been deemed controversial. Financially material ESG factors are integrated in the bottom-up fundamental investment analysis to assess existing and potential ESG risks and opportunities. The integration of ESG factors in the investment analysis does not have a sustainability indicator. In addition, where a stock issuer is flagged for breaching international standards in the ongoing monitoring, the issuer will become subject to exclusion. Lastly, the fund makes use of shareholder rights and applies proxy voting in accordance with Robeco's proxy voting policy.

The earnings season started in April. As always, the quarterly numbers and outlook had quite an impact on the prices of equities and sectors. Lots of industrials actually released better numbers than expected. Though some of the companies were rather cautious in their outlook. There is still a debate about the macroeconomic cycle, inflation and level of interest rates going on.

Based on transaction prices, the fund's return was -2.60%. In the water sector, we have seen relatively good quarterly earnings from industrials and the outlook often was good as well. The updates from residential building-related companies like plumbing were quite good and shares in this sector rebounded in general. There were some fears that commercial construction-related building material stocks will announce weaker outlooks, though the updates we have seen so far were still solid. Analytics still suffer under de-stocking in the value chain after companies increased their stocks during Covid times. Long-term, the outlook in the analytics sector is still very strong and offers a lot of growth opportunities, and valuations are relatively attractive, which is why we still keep our exposure to the sector.

The fund is still overweight in suppliers of analytical equipment thanks to their good growth opportunities. Building materials are still overweight as well. We prefer either infrastructure-related building materials or residential names with a rather high repair and renovation exposure. The fund has a small weight in US water utilities only. Brazilian water utilities are not held at the moment.