Robeco is one of Europe’s largest asset managers with more than $200 bn in assets under management. Founded in 1929, just weeks after the Wall Street Crash, by seven Rotterdam businessmen who formed a syndicate to invest people’s savings and manage money collectively, it was called the Rotterdamsch Beleggings Consortium, later shortened to Robeco.
The multinational firm is a research-driven active manager, renowned for its sustainability investing. In the US, it owns Harbor Capital Advisors and Boston Partners Asset Management, and acquired Sustainable Asset Management in Zurich in the 2000s. Robeco’s ‘investment engineers’ routinely integrate sustainability factors into their entire range of equity and fixed-income strategies and their investment style is bottom-up stock selection with top-down checks.
The Robeco Sustainable Global Stars Equities Fund has been investing worldwide since 1929, making it the oldest existing fund in the Netherlands. Today it has $5 bn in assets under management and both a 5-Star and 5-Globe ESG Morningstar rating. Oliver Attwater joined Robeco in September 2021 and works alongside five other portfolio managers on the Sustainable Global Stars Equities Fund.