Morgan Stanley IM: ESG in Sovereign Fixed Income Investing - Identifying Opportunities, Correcting Biases

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Our methodology allowed us to avoid the systematic bias against developing countries that typically have lower absolute sustainability performance compared to more developed countries, but may well be outperforming relative to what might be expected given their GDP per capita. In our updated methodology, we introduce further enhancements to our approach, incorporating a broader range of independent Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data, a comprehensive assessment of sustainability momentum, flexibility to adapt the approach depending on timeframe, and an impact framework based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

We introduce our newly enhanced Sovereign Sustainability Model (Display 1), a significantly updated and comprehensive approach to evaluating ESG performance for Sovereign issuers, which is designed to enhance and inform our investment process. Our model integrates the following key elements:

1. A materiality-based selection of ESG factors, seeking to capture metrics pertaining to a country’s usage of natural resources and climate change vulnerability, human development, the quality of institutions, and rule of law across developed and emerging markets.
2. Adjustments of our E, S, G scores by GDP per capita to help remove bias against emerging markets. By adjusting against GDP per capita, we believe we can control for wealth and rank of each country based on their expected performance on ESG metrics relative to their income.
3. Incorporation of a momentum factor that combines our analysts’ qualitative view with a quantitative assessment of track record.
4. Embedded flexibility to change the weights applied to E, S and G factors, acknowledging that the relative importance of these factors may vary depending on the time horizon of the debt instrument.
5. Classification of countries in our data set into five categories based on our assessment scale, from “Significant ESG Outperformer” to “Significant ESG Underperformer.”
6. Adoption of the SDGs as the reference framework for interpreting countries’ progress on economic and social development.

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Risk Considerations

Diversification does not eliminate risk of loss. There is no assurance that a portfolio will achieve its investment objective. Portfolios are subject to market risk, which is the possibility that the market values of securities owned by the portfolio will decline and that the value of portfolio shares may therefore be less than what you paid for them. Market values can change daily due to economic and other events (e.g. natural disasters, health crises, terrorism, conflicts and social unrest) that affect markets, countries, companies or governments. It is difficult to predict the timing, duration, and potential adverse effects (e.g. portfolio liquidity) of events. Accordingly, you can lose money investing in this portfolio. Please be aware that this portfolio may be subject to certain additional risks. Fixed income securities are subject to the ability of an issuer to make timely principal and interest payments (credit risk), changes in interest rates (interest-rate risk), the creditworthiness of the issuer and general market liquidity (market risk). In a rising interest-rate environment, bond prices may fall and may result in periods of volatility and increased portfolio redemptions. In a declining interest-rate environment, the portfolio may generate less income.Longer-term securities may be more sensitive to interest rate changes. Mortgage- and asset-backed securities are sensitive to early prepayment risk and a higher risk of default, and may be hard to value and difficult to sell (liquidity risk). They are also subject to credit, market and interest rate risks. Certain U.S. government securities purchased by the Strategy, such as those issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. It is possible that these issuers will not have the funds to meet their payment obligations in the future. High-yield securities (“junk bonds”) are lower-rated securities that may have a higher degree of credit and liquidity risk. Public bank loans are subject to liquidity risk and the credit risks of lower-rated securities. Foreign securities are subject to currency, political, economic and market risks. The risks of investing emerging market countries are greater than risks associated with investments in foreign developed countries.Sovereign debt securities are subject to default risk. Derivative instruments may disproportionately increase losses and have a significant impact on performance. They also may be subject to counterparty, liquidity, valuation, correlation and market risks. Restricted and illiquid securities may be more difficult to sell and value than publicly traded securities (liquidity risk).