LONDON, Oct 5 Reuters UK investors pulled money from funds focused on environmental, social and governance issues for a fifth straight month in September, fund network Calastone said on Thursday.

ESG investing has suffered a political backlash, particularly in the United States.

UK investors took 485 million pounds 589.4 million from ESG equity funds, with around half of the redemptions coming from North American ESG funds, Calastone said in a statement.

Investors turned their attention to global funds, which saw 981 million pounds of new money in September. Emerging market funds enjoyed another round of fresh cash, bringing their yeartodate total inflows to 2.39 billion pounds.

UK property funds saw their first inflows since July 2022 at 2.87 million pounds.

Commercial property values were very hard hit in the second half of 2022, both in the UK and internationally as the market adjusted to the sharply higher interest rate environment, said Edward Glyn, head of global markets at Calastone.

In 2023, values have seen much more modest declines, which has brought a greater sense of stability to the market.

1 0.8229 pounds

Reporting by Carolyn Cohn; Editing by Kirsten Donovan

Source Reuters