Hancock Natural Resource Group joins WBCSD
Geneva, 24 June 2019 – Hancock Natural Resource Group, a Manulife Investment Management company, has today joined nearly 200 forward-thinking companies as the newest member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
Hancock Natural Resource Group (HNRG) is a worldwide asset manager specializing in global agriculture and timber portfolio development and management.
HNRG’s timber division is the world’s largest global timberland investment manager for institutional investors. The division manages approximately 5.7 million acres of timberland valued at over USD $10.7 billion across Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and the United States.1
The agricultural investment group manages over 380,000 acres of prime farmland in the United States, Canada and Australia, valued at over USD $3.1 billion.1
William E. Peressini, President and Chief Executive Officer of HNRG said: “We are excited to join WBCSD and all its members, who are working together to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world. We believe that good management of environmental, social and corporate governance issues and risks can lead to long-term sustainable returns. As an early adopter of good stewardship practices, we have managed sustainable investment strategies in timber and farmland for many years. Consequently, we are particularly interested in WBCSD’s innovative work in relation to food and nature, and we look forward to being an active member of the Forest Solutions Group.”
WBCSD President and CEO Peter Bakker said “We are pleased to welcome HNRG as WBCSD’s newest member. Sustainable land and forest management is a key issue for the world, as it touches many areas related to the systems that support our planet – across water, soil health, biodiversity, health and nutrition and many others. We can only effect transformational change across these systems by working directly with large-scale businesses such as Hancock.”
HNRG is committed to sustainability and responsible investing, is a member of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), and as a Manulife Investment Management company is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI).
About Manulife Investment Management
Manulife Investment Management is the global wealth and asset management segment of Manulife Financial Corporation. We draw on more than 150 years of financial stewardship to partner with clients across our institutional, retail, and retirement businesses globally. Our specialist approach to money management includes the highly differentiated strategies of our fixed-income, specialized equity, multi-asset solutions, and private markets teams—along with access to specialized, unaffiliated asset managers from around the world through our multimanager model2 3. Our personalized, data-driven approach to retirement is focused on delivering financial wellness in retirement plans of all sizes to help plan participants and members retire with dignity.
Headquartered in Toronto, we operate as Manulife Investment Management throughout the world, with the exception of the United States, where the retail and retirement businesses operate as John Hancock Investment Management and John Hancock, respectively; and in Asia and Canada, where the retirement business operates as Manulife. Manulife Investment Management had C$837 billion in assets under management and administration as of March 31, 20194. Not all offerings available in all jurisdictions. For additional information, please visit our website at manulifeinvestmentmgt.com.
1. As of March 31, 2019
2. Public Markets strategies managed by Manulife Investment Management, formerly known as Manulife Asset Management and John Hancock Asset Management. Manulife Investment Management’s Private Markets platform offers long term solutions across private equity and private credit, real estate equity and debt, infrastructure equity, timberland and farmland.
3. John Hancock Investment Management’s multimanager approach oversees a global network of over 30 unaffiliated asset management firms, managing more than 100 investment strategies, in addition to our affiliated asset managers.
4. Source: MFC financials. Global Wealth and Asset Management AUMA at March 31, 2019 was C$837 billion and includes C$189 billion of assets managed on behalf of other segments and C$134 billion of assets under administration.