FTSE Group Launches Environmental Technology Index

FTSE Group (“FTSE”), the global index company, today launches the FTSE ET50 Index, made up of the largest fifty pure play environmental technology companies by market capitalisation worldwide, with an investable market cap of USD161,216m. The constituents are taken from a larger universe of over 500 global companies currently researched by Impax, the specialist environmental investment manager, who has partnered with FTSE to develop a range of indices within the environmental technology space.

Alternative Energy and Energy Efficiency companies represent 68% of the index, followed by water technology and pollution controls (15%) and waste technologies and resource management (17%).

The top 10 constituents are:

Will Oulton, Head of Responsible Investment at FTSE commented, “FTSE is committed to providing global investors with a set of responsible investment tools and services. The FTSE ET50 index will appeal to institutional and retail investors who want to gain exposure to and track the performance of these fast growing and dynamic sectors. Impax is widely recognised as a leading specialist in this area and FTSE is delighted to be able to work closely with them on this exciting new initiative.”

Ian Simm, Chief Executive of Impax, commented: “Environmental markets are growing rapidly in response to high demand for alternative energy, clean water and sustainable waste management solutions. As a leading investor in this sector, Impax is seeing significant interest from institutional investors in the FTSE ET50 product.”

The FTSE ET50 index provides an investible and transparent measure of the performance of the environmental technology sector and is available for investors to use as the basis of structured products, ETFs and index funds. The Seventh Swedish National Pension Fund (“AP7”) has already been licensed to use the FTSE ET50 Index.

About FTSE Group
FTSE Group is a world-leader in the creation and management of indexes. With offices in Beijing, London, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Madrid, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Boston, Shanghai and Tokyo, FTSE Group services clients in 77 countries worldwide. It calculates and manages the FTSE Global Equity Index Series, which includes world-recognized indexes ranging from the FTSE All-World Index, the FTSE4Good series and the FTSEurofirst Index series, as well as domestic indexes such as the prestigious FTSE 100. The company has collaborative arrangements with the Athens, AMEX, Cyprus, Euronext, Johannesburg London, Madrid, NASDAQ and Taiwan exchanges, as well as Nomura Securities, Hang Seng and Xinhua Finance of China. FTSE also has a collaborative agreement with Dow Jones Indexes to develop a single sector classification system for global investors.
FTSE indexes are used extensively by investors world-wide for investment analysis, performance measurement, asset allocation, portfolio hedging and for creating a wide range of index tracking funds. Independent committees of senior fund managers, derivatives experts, actuaries and other experienced practitioners review all changes to the indexes to ensure that they are made objectively and without bias. Real-time FTSE indexes are calculated on systems managed by Reuters. Prices and FX rates used are supplied by Reuters.

About Impax Asset Management
Impax is a specialist investment manager in the environmental sector with over US$1.9 billion under management across a range of funds investing in quoted securities and private equity. The firm was founded in 1994 as a specialist finance house focusing on the markets for cleaner or more efficient delivery of basic services of energy, water and waste. These markets are expanding rapidly, as business and political leaders encourage the development of cleaner products and services in response to the increasing pressures placed on the environment. Impax's dedicated team of professionals, with many years of experience in the financial and environmental sectors, is ideally placed to understand and take advantage of the investment opportunities arising from these growing markets. For more information, please visit www.impax.co.uk.