Insights
Pathfinder & our external partners
Meet our partners and learn which Funds they're involved with.
For our investors to get Pathfinder’s market-leading ethical analysis alongside best in class financial analysis, we work with three highly reputable external investment managers.
Nordea Asset Management
Nordea Asset Management (Nordea) have a team of over 200 investment and ESG research professionals based across Europe, mainly in Scandinavia. They actively manage our global equity portfolios by selecting investments from within a pool of companies, we call this our ‘investible universe’, which is controlled by Pathfinder according to our Ethical Investment Policy.
Nordea is the external investment manager for the global equity investments in:
- All the Pathfinder KiwiSaver Plan Funds
- Global Water Fund
- Global Responsibility Fund
- Ethical Growth Fund
The Global Property Fund continues to be managed by Pathfinder.
How this partnership benefits our investors:
Their team are well qualified to bring deep quantitative investment expertise to our product, aiming for above-market returns while also seeking to mitigate volatility.
This means it's reasonable for our investors to expect our global equity portfolio to perform more consistently over time relative to the broader global share market (in technical terms, to reduce its ‘tracking error’), albeit that the exclusions we apply to certain sectors (for example fossil fuels) will continue to be an important driver in this regard.
To understand how this impacts our products, here's some of the stock decisions that happened in April 2026:
Within these funds, in April 2026 we changed around a third of the global companies in which we hold shares, across a wide range of sectors and industries. This was mainly about recalibrating the portfolio to align with where Nordea’s team see the best opportunities within our ethically-defined investment universe.
That said, the changes in April 2026 included some that were driven by our internal ethical research. Here are some highlights:
- We divested Costco as our research found they have an involvement in factory farming, which our sustainability data providers had previously not highlighted.
- We divested Eaton Corp. as our research found they breached our military weapons revenue threshold following growth in their revenue exposure to military customers in the most recent financial year.
- And we divested Toyota Motor Corp due to lobbying activity. We debated internally and concluded this as inconsistent with our Ethical Investment Policy, especially regarding climate change.
- We invested in Rivian due to their manufacturing of electric vehicles, and GE Vernova LLC as they are a producer of key components for renewable energy.
Salt Funds Management Limited
Salt Funds Management Limited (Salt - our sibling company) actively manages our Trans-Tasman equity investments selected from a pool of companies, our investible universe, which is controlled by Pathfinder according to our Ethical Investment Policy.
Salt is the external investment manager for the Australasian equity investments in:
- All the Pathfinder KiwiSaver Plan Funds
- Ethical Trans-Tasman Fund
- Ethical Growth Fund
How this partnership benefits our investors:
It allows us to leverage Salt's Australasian expertise to support stronger financial outcomes from the stocks we determine meet our ethical overlay.
Salt have a strong long-performance record and enviable reputation in the Australasian asset management sector.
Metlife Investment Management
Metlife Investment Management (Metlife) have a large ESG team as well as sophisticated financial analysis capability. They incorporate ESG into credit analysis, risk assessment and issuer engagement – meaning our global bond fund is in great hands.
Metlife is the external investment manager for the Green Bond investments in:
- All the Pathfinder KiwiSaver Plan Funds
- Ethical Growth Fund
- Green Bond Fund
How this partnership benefits our investors:
This partnership allows Pathfinder to provide investors with global bond investments aimed predominantly at global ‘climate solutions’ [1]. Projects include clean transportation, clean water access, increasing resilience to extreme weather events and renewable energy supply networks. A global manager gives us access to ethically-aligned and financially sound bonds, deep research and ongoing analysis – something that’s hard to do well or efficiently from this side of the world.
Combined with our highly awarded [2] approach to ethical investing, these managers allow us to provide our investors with the best opportunity to generate individual wealth and collective well-being.
If you have any questions about our investment process, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Sources & further reading:
[1]‘Climate solutions’ is a broad term used in the industry; it is defined by IIGCC as “activities, goods or services that, according to credible pathways, need to increase substantially to enable the global economy to reach net zero”.
[2] https://pathfinder.kiwi/kiwisaver-funds/
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
