66 Sustainable investment products Raiffeisen Bausparkasse Gesellschaft m.b.H. Building societies stimulate the economic cycle through savings and financing, thereby enabling the construction of residential projects that are also of benefit to subsequent generations. The core co-operative principle of Raiffeisen is expressed very clearly here: One group saves for the financing of residential construction, renovation, training and care for others who currently need this financing. The savers profit from the secure investment of their assets as well as the government incentives and can also be certain that their capital is being invested in useful, sustainable projects. Raiffeisen Kapitalanlage-Gesellschaft m.b.H. (Raiffeisen KAG) The sustainable handling of customer deposits at RBI AG continues to be mainly effected by Raiffeisen KAG, which offers securities and real estate investment funds as well as investment management products to institutional and private customers both in Austria and abroad. The focus is on Austria as well as, increasingly, in Italy, Germany and – although still at a low level – the network banks in Central and Eastern Europe. Raiffeisen KAG is a leading asset manager in Austria, with a managed fund volume of € 28.3 billion and a market share of 16.9 percent (according to statistics from OeKB). If advisories (mandates to third parties) are included, the managed volume totaled € 30.3 billion at the end of 2016. Around € 1.1 billion is managed in the business area of asset management for premium private customers. In 2002, Raiffeisen KAG issued the first investment funds with ethical/sustainable criteria (“Raiffeisen-Ethik-Aktien”, today the “Nachhaltigkeitsfonds-Aktien”). Subsequently, the offer of such funds was progressively expanded and built into a consistent product range (see the table on page 67). This product portfolio includes retail investment funds as well as mandates (special funds) that explicitly give significant consideration to the ESG criteria (environmental, social and governance). Sustainable investment The volume of sustainable investments in 2016 rose compared with the previous year by approx. 60 percent to more than € 1.8 billion, partially through growth and partially through the establishment of new funds or the inclusion of existing funds in explicit sustainability criteria. The share of these sustainable investments in the total volume of Raiffeisen KAG is currently 6.2 percent. In recent years, Raiffeisen KAG has strongly pushed the topic of sustainable development and expanded its product portfolio in this area and now offers four sustainability funds (retail investment funds) with differing risk-yield profiles – from global investment equity funds to two mixed funds with different levels of share ratios to a purely (short-term) bond fund. In addition, there are funds with a specific orientation, such as Green Bonds (pension funds) and ESG-Momentum (European shares), and a well-established pension fund with mainly Austrian government bonds that focuses primarily on extreme reliability (Raiffeisen Austria-Rent) alongside the ESG criteria.
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