Expanding wealth manager and Financial Planner Kingswood has launched an ESG bond fund.

The fund, regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland and approved by the FCA, is targeting a five-year duration and aims to provide income with potential for long term capital growth.

The Kingswood ESG Bond Fund will invest in constituents from the Bloomberg Barclays MSCI Sterling Liquid Corporate ESG Weighted Index.

It is a fixed rate, investment grade, Sterling-only corporate bond benchmark. The index typically looks at around 1,000 data points including how employees are cared for within an organisation, how diverse the shareholder list is, and the effects that management policies would have on the environment.

The fund is actively managed and will introduce 20% maximum weightings for any individual sector to aid diversification, while maintaining liquidity through daily pricing, cash inflows and outflows will be on a T+3 basis.

The fund’s current average weighted rating on a model portfolio is A-, fees are 0.25%.

With this latest fund launch, Kingswood is looking to appeal to a wider client base including retail investors. Kingswood’s fixed income team has previously mostly managed mandates on a segregated basis for universities and institutions.

Nigel Marsh, associate director of fixed income at Kingswood, said: “We’ve seen a significant uptick in demand from clients looking to become greener in the way they invest. While definitions of ESG vary, it is easy to see why investing into companies that have strong ESG scores are becoming so popular.

"Those companies with higher ESG scores are defining best practice which in turn sets a level for others to strive to achieve. It protects employee health and wellbeing as well as ensuring that management are allowing decent corporate structures to be set in place.”

Kingswood has outlined ambitious plans for growth in 2021. In December the wealth manager and Financial Planner said it was raising a further £20m to fund its acquisition war-chest.