HONG KONG (Reuters) – Reuters) – HSBC Holdings launched a climate change fund on Thursday to give investors a chance to turn a threat into an opportunity by buying into the increasing number of firms trying to tackle global warming.
"As recently as five years ago, who talked about climate change? Very few people. It was fashionable to be sceptical… It seems the tide has turned quite significantly," said Patrice Conxicoeur, chief executive of SINOPIA, the quantitative investment arm of the global bank, which will manage the fund.
"The market has taken notice," he told a news conference to launch the fund.
The fund, "HSBC Global Investment Funds – Climate Change" will aim to outperform HSBC’s own climate change benchmark index .HSCCB.HSCCBT by 3 percent per year, which the bank said had shown a 164 percent return since January 1, 2004.
