LONDON - When Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in 2018, London-based hedge fund manager Dominic Armstrong bet investors would be turned off and the kingdom’s debt would take a beating.
Riyadh rejected the U.S. report as false, while the crown prince has denied involvement in Khashoggi’s killing. Saudi Arabia is nonetheless the focus of criticism from campaign groups and some Western politicians over its record on human rights and civil liberties. “Emerging market debt is full of trade-offs, and taking a Western lens on that sometimes is relatively difficult as they are on a different scale of the development,” said Marcin Adamczyk, head of emerging market debt at NN Investment Partners, which manages 300 billion euros .
He added Saudi was developing regulations and legislation to improve ease of doing business, increase transparency and support its commitment to the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals as part of its push to improve ESG.Sovereign debt is part of a fixed-income universe that is a laggard in the ESG game.
Still, some investors said it is possible to take a stand. A group of fund managers, for example, have in recent months warned Brazil’s government they will divest their investments unless it halts the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Some investors also say that focusing on social and governance considerations would heavily favour richer countries, which tend to get a higher ranking than poorer countries because of stronger markers on political stability, educational standards, poverty rates and their labour market.
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