June 08, 2007
Gabelli Launches New Value-Oriented SRI Fund
by Anne Moore Odell
Gabelli Funds offers its first open SRI Fund, backed up by years of SRI experience working with
institutional investors.
SocialFunds.com --
Gabelli Funds of Rye, NY, this Tuesday
announced the launch of the Gabelli SRI Fund. The Fund's portfolio will include stocks from a wide
range of companies who met certain social and environmental criteria and that will create
stockowner value. Gabelli Funds, the Fund's advisor, is solely owned by GAMCO Investors (ticker: GBL) with more than $29 billion in assets
under management. GAMCO has nearly twenty years experience in managing socially screened separate
accounts.
"From our first institutional client with a
social mandate in 1987 to today, we pride ourselves in being able to customize portfolios for
clients that meet their goals, objectives, and social guidelines, regardless of how stringent they
may be," said Christopher Desmarais, Senior Vice President, Director of SRI, and Portfolio Manager
for the Gabelli SRI Fund.
"We believe the time is right to offer this historically
institutional product to the mutual fund community in the form of The Gabelli SRI Fund. This Fund
will allow the mutual fund investor - if he or she chooses - to invest with their conscience,"
Desmarais added.
Securities will be chosen using the resources of the GAMCO organization.
The Gabelli SRI Fund's guidelines, as listed its prospectus, will preclude investments in the top
50 defense companies, companies involved with abortion, and companies with greater than 5% revenue
in tobacco, gambling and alcohol products and/or services. The Fund will also identify companies
that have a positive overall environmental record.
"Our social screening process has
been developed and refined over these past twenty years. We utilize both our internal research of
29 analysts who are broken up by industry and follow their companies around the world, thus they
have an intimate understanding of the businesses, as well as an outside service," Desmarais
explained. "The outside service Social Investment Research Service (SIRS) allows us real time
access, via the web, to a database on relevant social issues."
The Fund's investment
strategy is to find companies whose stocks are undervalued relative to their private market value,
or, in other words, the value of a company as if the company's parts were independently traded
entities. At least 80% of the Fund's assets will be in companies that meet the Fund's SRI
guidelines.
The Fund is offered in multi-class shares: No-load Class AAA (ticker: SRIGX),
Up-front Load Class A (ticker: SRIAX), Level-load Class C (ticker: SRICX) and Class I (ticker:
SRIDX). Investors can buy the Fund directly through Gabelli with a no-load option or through
brokerage firms in a load form. The minimum investment is $1,000 with lower minimums for retirement
plans and automatic investment plans.
©
SRI World Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Top
|