Bloomberg and MSCI Expand ESG Fixed Income Index Suite, Launch New ESG High Yield Indices

NEW YORK – Bloomberg and MSCI Inc. (NYSE: MSCI), a leading provider of critical decision support tools and services for the global investment community, today announced the expansion of the Bloomberg Barclays MSCI ESG Fixed Income Index suite with the global launch of nine environmental, social and governance (ESG) high yield indices.

The indices incorporate ESG considerations in underlying fixed income indices and are co-branded as the Bloomberg Barclays MSCI ESG High Yield Indices. The family of high yield bond benchmarks include three variants across US, Pan-Euro, and Global:

• The Bloomberg Barclays MSCI High Yield SRI Indices: designed to exclude issuers with substantial revenue derived from sources such as adult entertainment, alcohol, gambling, tobacco, controversial military weapons, civilian firearms, nuclear power, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
• The Bloomberg Barclays MSCI High Yield Sustainability Indices: designed to include issuers with higher MSCI ESG Ratings.
• The Bloomberg Barclays MSCI High Yield ESG Weighted Indices: designed to use MSCI ESG Ratings to adjust issuer market weights.

“With ESG becoming increasingly integrated into investors’ workflows, we are always working to expand our ESG offerings to meet this demand – in this case with our new ESG High Yield indices,” said Chris Hackel, Index Product Manager, Bloomberg. “Our longstanding relationship with MSCI has provided investors with a broad portfolio of ESG index solutions, and we are excited to evolve it further to include a solution for high-yield bonds.”

“As investors increasingly pursue long-term, sustainable investment approaches, there is more demand for ESG coverage and transparency within the fixed income asset class. We are therefore pleased to address this demand by collaborating with Bloomberg to introduce nine new indices leveraging our expanded high yield ESG coverage,” said Eric Moen, Head of ESG Products for MSCI ESG Research. “Through this collaboration, we are providing investors with the tools and transparency they need to effectively integrate ESG considerations into their investment processes.”

The Bloomberg Barclays MSCI ESG Fixed Income Index suite, which includes a range of investment grade, aggregate, corporate index and now multi-currency, high yield benchmarks, is currently available for investors on the Bloomberg Terminal®.

About Bloomberg

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Bloomberg provides an independent, transparent approach to indexing for customers across the globe. For more information, please visit this link.

About MSCI

MSCI is a leading provider of critical decision support tools and services for the global investment community. With over 45 years of expertise in research, data and technology, we power better investment decisions by enabling clients to understand and analyze key drivers of risk and return and confidently build more effective portfolios. We create industry-leading research-enhanced solutions that clients use to gain insight into and improve transparency across the investment process. To learn more, please visit www.msci.com.

Media Contacts

Bloomberg

US, Liidia Liuksila, +1-212-617-5424, lliuksila@bloomberg.net

Asia, Grace Ngoh, +65-6231-3690, gngoh2@bloomberg.net

EMEA, Anna Schoeffler, +44 20 3525 0776, aschoeffler1@bloomberg.net

LATAM, Pam Snook, +212-617-7652, pamsnook@bloomberg.net

MSCI

Americas, Melanie Blanco, +1-212-981-1049

EMEA, Laura Hudson, +44-207-336-9653

APAC, Rachel Lai, +852 2844 9315