sydneyperpetual ltd is positioning environmental social and governance investing at the forefront of everything it does chief executive rob adams said warning other asset managers that they will be left behind if they dont follow suit the australian fund manager reported that its net profit for the first half of fiscal 2022 more than doubled to 593 million australian dollars us426 million the result was supported by strong growth in its perpetual asset management international or pami unit which houses esg manager trillium asset management the world is in transition and that it is transitioning to an environment where people are mindful of carbon footprints mindful of their impact mindful of what theyre doing for society and community at large mr adams told the wall street journal governance is more important than its ever been so i think i would say in everything we do at perpetual now we are thinking about esg implications perpetual in july 2020 completed its acquisition of bostonbased responsible investor trillium since then it has built out a usbased distribution team to drive expansion following the acquisition growth in trilliums assets under management has moved past 70 in us dollar terms perpetual said in a regulatory filing thursday pami which comprises trillium and barrow hanley global investors recorded assets under management of a772 billion as of the end of december up from a665 billion in the previous year mr adams said trilliums growth should continue which validates perpetuals decision to focus on capturing flows from the fastgrowing and global esg megatrend for those fund managers that dont follow suit mr adams said they could be left behind there still might be an opportunity for them to make money for their clients but i think it will be increasingly difficult because its becoming a base requirement as an asset manager he said if youre completing an rfi request for information for an institutional mandate anywhere around the world one of the first screens is what are you doing with esg so your opportunity to win new money to grow would be seriously impacted if you didnt have a sensible approach to esg for perpetual the majority of its assets now have some form of esg analysis integrated in with plans for future product development to have esg at the forefront mr adams said not only is esg a dominant megatrend but it is also a permanent one i think there will be a time in the future that the label of esg investing almost disappears because its just the way everyone runs money he said for the six months to december pami recorded underlying profit before tax of a319 million more than tripling from the prior year