My spouse and I have made the decision to divest from fossil fuels and have been looking at our options.
Currently our investment mix is across property, P2P, cash accounts and index funds, and all the index funds are with Vanguard. We have half our international $ in the Vanguard Ethically Conscious Fund.
If we wanted, we could move all our international $ to that fund, no problem. With the AU $, unfortunately, I found out yesterday that we aren't able to add a new product (AU Ethically Conscious) to our account, and instead need to withdraw, open a new account and re-invest. There was some change to the rules in 2020. I think that means a tax event, but I can't see how we can avoid that though if we are to go ahead and divest, unless we went 100% global (hard no).
The other factor in play is that Vanguard's ethically conscious funds don't score too well according to these guys (scroll down to investment funds):
https://www.leafratings.org/all-funds.html#super So if we have to withdraw anyway, why not buy into one of the higher rated ones? The Pengana WHEB has a retail option and the Betashares Sustainability Leaders options are ETFs, so all very straightforward. The fees would be a little higher than Vanguard (we're paying wholesale rates so 0.17-0.20%) but that's ok with us if they are "better".
Does anyone have any experience with the Pengana WHEB Fund or Betashares Sustainability Leaders ETFs? They are fairly new but all ethical funds are fairly new!
Apart from the higher fees, the only other negative I can see in moving away from Vanguard is that Vanguard is a little safer since the funds are held by a custodian/trust.
I guess this should be quite a drawcard for staying put?Not looking for any discussion on the merits of divesting or otherwise, thanks.