Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A)

George  Serafeim; Rebecca   Henderson; Shannon  Gombos

Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2015 (Revised September 2017)

Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A)

by George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson and Shannon Gombos

Abstract

The sustainable investing market was a recent phenomenon in the first decade of the 21st century. However, an increasing number of investors began to integrated Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues in investment decisions. At Barclays Capital, Omar Selim had spearheaded the development of Arabesque—a new socially responsible investment firm designed to appeal to all investors wishing to invest according to broadly held environmental and social values, such as limiting environmental externalities and promoting workforce diversity, as well as to investors wishing to align their investments with their faith. Should Selim give up a very successful career to compete in a highly competitive business, in which it could be very hard to build a differentiated offering? Could Arabesque be something different in the world of asset management? And what role, if any, should values and religious faith play in shaping the firm's products and conduct?

Keywords: sustainability; ESG; social business; entrepreneurs; scaling; emerging market entrepreneurship; not for profit; entrepreneurial finance; mentoring; business networks; hybrid nonprofit funding; Investing; investment management; Asset Management; Values and Beliefs; Religion; Personal Development and Career; Business Startups; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship;

Language: English

Format: Print

17 pages

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Citation:

Serafeim, George, Rebecca Henderson, and Shannon Gombos. "Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A)." Harvard Business School Case 115-021, January 2015. (Revised September 2017.)

Related Work

Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2015 (Revised September 2017)

Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A)

George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson, Shannon Gombos, George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson and Shannon Gombos

The sustainable investing market was a recent phenomenon in the first decade of the 21st century. However, an increasing number of investors began to integrated Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues in investment decisions. At Barclays Capital, Omar Selim had spearheaded the development of Arabesque—a new socially responsible investment firm designed to appeal to all investors wishing to invest according to broadly held environmental and social values, such as limiting environmental externalities and promoting workforce diversity, as well as to investors wishing to align their investments with their faith. Should Selim give up a very successful career to compete in a highly competitive business, in which it could be very hard to build a differentiated offering? Could Arabesque be something different in the world of asset management? And what role, if any, should values and religious faith play in shaping the firm's products and conduct?

Keywords: sustainability; ESG; social business; entrepreneurs; scaling; emerging market entrepreneurship; not for profit; entrepreneurial finance; mentoring; business networks; hybrid nonprofit funding; Investing; investment management; Asset Management; Values and Beliefs; Religion; Personal Development and Career; Business Startups; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship;

Citation:
Serafeim, George, Rebecca Henderson, and Shannon Gombos. "Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A)." Harvard Business School Case 115-021, January 2015. (Revised September 2017.) View Details

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | February 2015 (Revised September 2017)

Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (B)

George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson and Shannon Gombos

The case describes the decision of Omar Selim to set up Arabesque as an independent organization and how he organized Arabesque to use both financial and environmental, social and governance (ESG) data in order to deliver performance for its clients.

Keywords: social enterprise; social entrepreneurship; Investing; investment management; ESG; sustainability; investment banking; leadership; Leadership & Corporate Accountability; Leadership Style; Business Model; Asset Management; Business Startups; Social Enterprise;

Citation:
Serafeim, George, Rebecca Henderson, and Shannon Gombos. "Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 115-035, February 2015. (Revised September 2017.) View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | January 2017 (Revised February 2017)

Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A) and (B)

George Serafeim and David Freiberg

Citation:
Serafeim, George, and David Freiberg. "Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 117-011, January 2017. (Revised February 2017.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2015 (Revised September 2017)

Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A)

George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson, Shannon Gombos, George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson and Shannon Gombos

The sustainable investing market was a recent phenomenon in the first decade of the 21st century. However, an increasing number of investors began to integrated Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues in investment decisions. At Barclays Capital, Omar Selim had spearheaded the development of Arabesque—a new socially responsible investment firm designed to appeal to all investors wishing to invest according to broadly held environmental and social values, such as limiting environmental externalities and promoting workforce diversity, as well as to investors wishing to align their investments with their faith. Should Selim give up a very successful career to compete in a highly competitive business, in which it could be very hard to build a differentiated offering? Could Arabesque be something different in the world of asset management? And what role, if any, should values and religious faith play in shaping the firm's products and conduct?

Keywords: sustainability; ESG; social business; entrepreneurs; scaling; emerging market entrepreneurship; not for profit; entrepreneurial finance; mentoring; business networks; hybrid nonprofit funding; Investing; investment management; Asset Management; Values and Beliefs; Religion; Personal Development and Career; Business Startups; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship;

Citation:
Serafeim, George, Rebecca Henderson, and Shannon Gombos. "Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A)." Harvard Business School Case 115-021, January 2015. (Revised September 2017.) View Details

Cite View Details Educators Purchase Related

In the face of accelerating climate change, investors are making capital allocations seeking to decarbonize portfolios by reducing the carbon emissions of their holdings. To understand the performance of portfolio decarbonization strategies and investor behavior towards decarbonization we construct decarbonization factors that go long low carbon intensity sectors, industries, or firms and short high carbon intensity. We consider several portfolio formation strategies and find strategies that lowered carbon emissions more aggressively performed better. Decarbonization factor returns are associated with contemporaneous institutional flows into the factors. Buying decarbonization factors when coincident flows are positive while selling when they are negative produces significantly positive alphas. Combining decarbonization factors that have positive contemporaneous flows would provide investors with significantly superior returns and continuous exposure to low carbon portfolios. The results are more pronounced in Europe relative to the U.S. Our results suggest that institutional investor flows contain information about anticipated fundamentals related to climate change developments.

Analyzing data from approximately 1.5 million employees across 1,100 established public and private U.S. companies, we find that the strength of employee beliefs about their firm’s purpose is lower in public companies. This difference is most pronounced within the salaried middle and hourly ranks rather than among senior executives. Among public companies, purpose becomes progressively lower with more concentrated shareholders, especially in firms with high hedge fund ownership. These patterns can be partly explained by differences in CEO backgrounds and compensation: public firms, particularly those with strong shareholders, choose outsider CEOs at higher rates and pay them more relative to their employees. Our analyses suggest that these results are not driven solely by sorting effects but appear attributable in part to the impact that firm owners have on their employees. In summary, shareholders appear to influence the strength of corporate purpose deep within organizations via the leadership and corporate practices they enable at the top.

Aperture Investors is a startup investment firm that seeks to disrupt the asset management industry through competitive differentiation by charging investors primarily when its portfolio managers outperform the marketplace. Headed by Wall Street veteran Peter Kraus and backed with substantial and patient seed capital, Aperture seeks to attract both star portfolio managers and assets from mutual funds and hedge funds. Kraus believes that his innovative business model addresses the current dysfunctional fee and incentive structures in the industry, which have led to long-term market underperformance, and that Aperture will address the reasons that are motivating investors to shift to cheaper, passively-managed index and exchange-traded funds.

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Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A)

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