February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Thus we have Ave Maria Funds, a pro-Catholic investing fund that says money sent its way will not go to companies associated with abortion, pornography, non-marital partner benefits and Planned Parenthood contributors, to name a few.
Ave Maria Funds (at ticker symbol: AVEMX) is one example of a growing stable of so-called socially responsible investing. It is the largest and fastest-growing Catholic investment fund in the country, according to a Business Week survey.
Socially responsible investing grew out of 1980s activism over the apartheid regime in South Africa, when campaigners started the idea of hurting the South African government by boycotting its goods and avoiding investing money in that country?s firms. It fulfilled a twofold purpose ? taking cash away from such companies and allowing the investor to feel more responsible and in control of his or her money.
But how realistic is the concept of morally responsible investing? Analysts say that socially responsible or morally responsible investing now accounts for about $2 trillion per year, so clearly it?s serious business.
For Ave Maria Funds, a six-member Catholic advisory board, chaired by former Commissioner of Baseball Bowie K. Kuhn, sets rules by which companies are approved according to the fund?s religious criteria.
An advisor for Ave Maria, George Schwartz, president of Schwartz Investment Counsel, said Ave Maria is best defined as ?morally responsible investing,? and said that socially responsible investing (SRI) funds ?are generally interested in criteria such as environmental impact or the number of women on the board. Most of the SRI funds are tree huggers.”
“Some of them have positive screens for companies that have favorable employment practices toward homosexuals,? he added.
Money still talks ? and walks: not every fund, including Ave Maria, will invest in companies that adhere to religious principles but turn in woeful returns.
Donald Kennedy, a retiree in Philadelphia who lives off his morally responsible investments, said: “The religious principles don’t exist to the exclusion of performance. My expectation was, and is, that it will deliver the same returns.”
However, on the other hand, Kennedy absolutely won?t let his money go to questionable companies, saying that he saw it as akin to investing with the mob.
Ave Maria is the work of Thomas Monaghan, who made his fortune with Domino?s Pizza, which he sold in 1998 for $1 billion. The Ave Maria fund he started to fund his other Catholic project, Ave Maria College, a law school in Florida, as well as a group of elementary schools.
Aquinas, the next largest Catholic fund after Ave Maria with about $150 million in assets in six funds, gets shareowners to persuade potential investments to adopt more pro-Catholic practices.
Companies are urged to become more ethical and also reminded of the investing potential of many Catholics across the U.S.
There are additional benefits to morally responsible investing, said Gregg Watkins of Ave Maria. Many supposedly hot Internet stocks from the late 1990s offered same-sex partnership benefits and were avoided by Ave Maria as a result ? the same stocks later disappeared without trace.
Ave Maria, whether blessed by God or simply canny in its investing is impossible to say, but the fund like many other socially or morally responsible investing funds, has performed above average in the last few uncertain years. It has $55 million in assets.