ZURICH, Switzerland, April 15, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SAM, the sustainability investing specialist, and Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced that Seligson & Co Fund Management has signed a license for the Dow Jones Sustainability Asia Pacific Index (DJSI Asia Pacific). This is the first index fund worldwide to track this new benchmark. The Seligson & Co Asia Index Fund expands the asset manager's existing range of two sustainability funds based on the Dow Jones STOXX Sustainability (DJSI STOXX) and Dow Jones Sustainability North America Indexes (DJSI North America).
The DJSI Asia Pacific was introduced earlier this year to track the sustainability leaders within the developed markets in Asia Pacific. The index includes the 20% most sustainable companies out of the largest 600 stocks in the region by free float market capitalization. The underlying SAM assessment covers a variety of issues such as corporate governance, risk management, branding, climate change mitigation, supply chain standards and human capital. The analysis reflects the growing importance investors attribute to sustainability criteria around the globe.
"We are delighted to expand our existing relationship with Seligson and to see them add our new DJSI Asia Pacific to their offering. SAM and Dow Jones Indexes launched this benchmark earlier this year as the complementary piece in our joint index range to cover all three major investment regions. Finland is an exciting market for sustainability investing and we are delighted to provide Seligson with the benchmarks to tap into this opportunity," said Alexander Barkawi, managing director, SAM Indexes.
"Sustainability is continuously moving up investor agendas. Growing interest in the integration of long-term economic, environmental and social factors among Finnish private and institutional investors is a case in point for this. We see significant potential in sustainability investing and we are convinced that the DJSI family provides us with the best platform to meet client demand in this field," says Ari Kaaro, managing director, Seligson & Co Fund Management.
Introduced in 1999, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes are the longest-running benchmarks that track the performance of sustainability leaders on a global scale. Today, the DJSI family is used by asset managers in 16 countries as benchmark and investment universe for a wide variety of financial products including mutual funds, separate accounts, structured products and ETFs.
About SAM
SAM was established in Zurich in 1995 as the first investment group focused exclusively on the integration of economic, environmental and social criteria into investing. The company's services comprise asset management and indexing. In 1999, SAM teamed up with Dow Jones Indexes to launch the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) -- the first benchmarks tracking the performance of sustainability leaders on a global scale. Two years later, European index provider STOXX Limited joined this cooperation to expand the DJSI family with European and Eurozone sustainability benchmarks -- the DJSI STOXX and DJSI EURO STOXX. Today, the DJSI family comprises global, European, Eurozone, North American, U.S. as well as Asia Pacific sustainability benchmarks. Total assets managed against the DJSI family amount to over US$6bn. Full details about the design philosophy, review methodology and index components are freely available at www.sam-group.com and www.sustainability-indexes.com.
About Dow Jones Indexes
A full-service index provider, Dow Jones Indexes develops, maintains and licenses indexes for use as benchmarks and as the basis of investment products. Best known for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Indexes also is co-owner of the Dow Jones STOXX indexes, the world's leading pan-European indexes that are an integrated segment of the Dow Jones Global Index series. Additionally, Dow Jones Indexes maintains its benchmark index series, the Dow Jones Total Stock Market Indexes, which is anchored by the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index and covers more than 12,000 securities in 65 markets. Beyond equity indexes, Dow Jones Indexes maintains a number of alternative indexes, including measures of the hedge fund and commodity markets. Dow Jones indexes are maintained according to clear, unbiased and systematic methodologies that are fully integrated within index families. www.djindexes.com
Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com) is a News Corporation company (Nasdaq:NWS) (Nasdaq:NWSA) (ASX:NWS) (ASX:NWSLV) (www.newscorp.com). Dow Jones is a leading provider of global business news and information services. Its Consumer Media Group publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Its Enterprise Media Group includes Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones Indexes and Dow Jones Financial Information Services. Its Local Media Group operates community-based information franchises. Dow Jones owns 50% of SmartMoney and 33% of STOXX Ltd. and provides news content to radio stations in the U.S.
The Dow Jones & Company logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=4578