NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ellevest has announced an expansion of its investment platform to include the Ellevest Impact Portfolios (the Portfolios), marking the company’s first entry into the fast-growing impact investing market. Available to all clients, the Portfolios embody a gender-lens investment theme to drive positive social and economic change by advancing women globally. The platform expansion also includes a suite of additional gender-lens impact investing options for Ellevest Private Wealth Management clients.
This is the second expansion of Ellevest’s investment platform in fewer than 4 months — one that is credited, in part, to the increasing appeals of women investors and Ellevest clients who want purpose-driven investing opportunities. While many gender-lens investment offerings focus on driving capital to companies that advance women, Ellevest’s approach does this, while also including investments that get capital more directly into the hands of women and the organizations that support their economic advancement. Examples include: investments that provide small business loans to women owners, trade finance loans that help companies with social mandates in emerging economies, and sustainable housing for workforce tenants and their families.
Closing the Gaps
Investment industry reports credit women for leading the rapid growth[1] of the impact investing market — one that could reach $400 billion by 2020[2]. Yet, while a recent Morgan Stanley report said 84% of women are interested in sustainable/impact investments, there’s been a gap between investor interest and investor action when it comes to impact investing.[3] As perceptions of inferior returns are debunked and the universe of impact investments grows, it’s expected that investor behavior will change[4]. With Ellevest clients citing the ability to make a positive impact through their investments as one of the top items on their client “wish list,” company co-founder and CEO Sallie Krawcheck believes investor behavior is already changing — and again, women are leading the way.
Krawcheck said: “Ellevest’s focus is to close the gender-based money gaps that can cost women a fortune over the course of their lives. Across the board, as we see women taking their rightful seats at the investing table, they want to do more — and are ready to do more — with their money. They’re recognizing the power that our collective investments can have, and they want their impact to be a positive one. Current events have spurred women to unite in action. There’s a greater urgency among women investors to use their growing financial clout in support of other women and to invest in the future they want — rejecting outdated views about sacrificing the potential for investment returns or forgoing their own goals in order to do so.”
Invest With Impact? The Choice Is Yours
With Ellevest’s no-account-minimum service option, clients may choose to invest with impact from their very first dollar. And, since the new Ellevest Impact Portfolios and the core Ellevest portfolios both provide a customized, globally diversified mix of underlying investments, both portfolio options are designed to give clients the best chance to reach their investment goals. In collaboration with a dedicated advisor, Ellevest Private Wealth Management clients may also choose from a curated selection of impact investment opportunities to help them reach their investment goals.
For more information about the Ellevest Impact Portfolios, go to:https://ellevest.com/impact-investing. Or, to learn more about impact investing opportunities available through Ellevest Private Wealth Management, go to: https://www.ellevest.com/private-wealth-management.
About Ellevest:
Ellevest was founded to provide women with a welcoming, innovative and cost-effective alternative to traditional Wall Street investment services. Designed from the ground up for women, Ellevest’s technology-enabled investment platform uses an algorithm that accounts for gender differences related to women’s pay, career breaks, and lifespan. With three client service levels that offer a diversified, goals-based investing approach, Ellevest is flexibly designed to serve women at various points in their financial lives — from novice investors to those seeking more sophisticated private wealth management. In addition to providing tools and resources that help women close gender-based money and investing gaps, Ellevest is committed to offering investment opportunities that also drive positive social and economic change by advancing women. Ellevest does not guarantee investment performance. All investing entails risk, including the possible loss of principal, and there is no assurance that the investment will provide positive performance over any period of time. For more information, visit www.ellevest.com.
[1] https://casefoundation.org/blog/trailblazing-women-in-impact-investing/
[2]
Lisa A. Hagerman, DBL Investors; and Daniel W. Geballe, Stanford
Graduate School of Business, “The New Family Philanthropy:
Investing
for Social and Environmental Change” (Center for Community Development
Investments, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, August 2013), 2.
[3]https://www.morganstanley.com/ideas/sustainable-socially-responsible-investing-millennials-drive-growth
[4]http://missionthrottle.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Women-and-Impact-Investing-Project-Findings-12-2-16.pdf