Domini Social Investments, which debuted 15 years ago Domini Social Equity, the first socially responsible index fund, is asking shareholders to approve its conversion to an actively-managed strategy, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The move, according to MarketWatch, is intended to improve sagging returns. “We have had a period of a number of years that have been quite frustrating, where our screening added value, but the weighting we had to follow prevented us from delivering all of that value,” fund founder Amy Domini told MarketWatch.
Domini intends to have the newly actively managed version of the $1.2 billion fund handled by Wellington Management Co., which came aboard last fall to manage the firm’s new Domini European Social Equity Fund. Should the switch be approved, Wellington would apply its quantitative methods to the older fund, ending its tracking of the Domini 400 Social Index.