Short positions... investors oblivious to greenwashing

⬛ The Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust is to buy back at least £1bn, or 9%, of its shares to lift its stock price, currently at a 13% discount to its net asset value (NAV), says CityWire. Baillie Gifford’s flagship trust is still recovering from the sharp global sell-off in growth companies in 2022, which was triggered by rising interest rates. The slump wiped 50% off the stock. Having repaid £450m of short-term debt in the past two years and cut borrowing to 13% of net assets, the trust said it intended to treble the £353m of shares it had bought back since 1921. The move comes amid an increase in buybacks by investment companies to address sector-wide share discounts and lacklustre returns for shareholders. Scottish Mortgage’s broker, Deutsche Numis, said the stock repurchase programme, worth 7.8% of its £13bn of net assets and 9% of the firm’s £11bn market value, could increase daily trading volumes in the stock by 10%. ⬛ Investors are confused by some of the definitions and labels attached to Isas, says CityAM. Triodos Bank, a Netherlands-based ethical retail bank, says that 55% of people holding a stocks-and-shares Isa with a provider ranked among the worst for environmental sustainability actually believe that their money is in a “green” Isa. Half of consumers don’t believe that a fund or savings account can be considered sustainable if it includes fossil-fuel firms. But funds with fossilfuel companies can be labelled “sustainable”, particularly if the fund is trying to put pressure on the polluter to clean up its act. Triodos’s Roger Hattam said consumers want their money to align with their values, but there is no industry commitment to mark clearly what their money actually supports.