ESG Investing Portfolio Manager Details Several of His Current Top Picks

October 21, 2019

Pedro Marcal is the Director of International Equities and a Portfolio Manager at Foresters Investment Management Company, Inc. — FIMCO — and joined the firm in May 2018. Previously, he was a portfolio manager of global and international products at Fred Alger Management, where he worked for more than five years.

Before that he was a portfolio manager at Allianz Global Investors and its predecessor, Nicholas‐Applegate Capital Management, for 18 years, where he focused on international equities including developed and emerging markets. He has been in the investment management industry since 1994.

He has a B.A. in economics from the University of California at San Diego and an MBA from UCLA.

In this 2,668 word interview, exclusive to the Wall Street Transcript, Mr. Marcal demonstrates how ESG investing can produce outsized returns for investors.

“We’re talking about sustainability and particularly sustainability with a focus on companies that do the least damage to the environment while providing products and services that face increasing demand, such as food production and lower-emission air conditioning and resource utilization. And I think investors are increasingly interested in ESG.

We own another company, called Ashtead (OTCMKTS:ASHTF), that might be considered controversial in terms of being an ESG-friendly company, but we don’t think so. Ashtead is a British company that leases a full range of construction, industrial and general equipment to customers.”

Another interesting pick is the famous Japanese video game company.

“The key here is that we think Nintendo will launch a less expensive Switch. It was a little Nintendo machine that people play Donkey Kong on.

So this DS hand-held replacement has the potential to triple the Street forecast for hardware units. And this is supported by sales of their DS, which has done 230 million units in all of its versions since launch in 2004. So unlike the DS, the Switch addresses both the at-home and mobile hand-held markets.

We met with Nintendo’s senior management and played their yet-to-be-released games at the E3 Conference in June, and the lines were hours long to play some of these games.

Our target price is significantly above our 20% threshold. Perhaps more importantly for us, being long-term investors, we look at our three-year target price and see significantly more upside. ”

To get more detail on these and several other ESG stocks owned in this highly respected stock picker’s portfolio, read the entire 2,668 word interview, only in the Wall Street Transcript.