“Pride and Corporate Performance,” is the title of a review published by the investment bank Credit Suisse, On the occasion of Pride Month- As part of the ESG issue – environmental, social and corporate governance issues that are taken into account in investment – Credit Suisse examined and found that the inclusion of employees in UAVs leads not only to increasing equality but is also important from an economic point of view-
“Given that the LGBT rate in the population is 5% -10%, and that LGBT consumers have a similar spending pattern as other consumers, the purchasing power of LGBT consumers is estimated at $ 2-7-5-6 trillion from the G20 economies,” the review said- “In other words: if the LGBTs had an economy in their own right, it was the third or fourth largest economy in the world-” The review indicates, for example, that at a rate of 7-5% per capita of the population, such an economy was larger than the economies of Germany, India and the United Kingdom-
LGBT employees contribute to performance
A few months ago, Credit Suisse built a kind of index that includes about 350 companies that meet the criteria for diversity and employment of LGBT people (based on membership policy, what is practiced in practice, benefits relevant to LGBT people and LGBT people in senior management positions), Another 50 companies-
According to the data examined, companies that include LGBTs performed better than companies that did not include LGBTs- For example, companies in the MSCI ACWI index (which tracks the global capital markets), with the exception of the companies in the Credit Suisse LGBT index, yielded a return of 7-1% from January 2010 and a return of 9-2% from the beginning of the current year, while the Credit Suisse LGBT index yielded a adjusted return Of 11-7% from January 2010 and of 13-3% since the beginning of 2021-
Among the prominent companies on Credit Suisse’s list are the American high-tech giants Dark, Microsoft, Amazon, Google andFacebook, And Tesla, Bank JP Morgan, visa, Anvidia, Johnson & Johnson and-Walmart– The first non-American company on the list is the Korean Samsung Electronics; From Ireland come Accenture and Medtronic, from Switzerland – the pharmaceutical company Novartis, and from Belgium – the brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev-
Credit Suisse notes that the index is biased toward large companies – companies with a value of more than $ 10 billion make up over 44% of it, and companies with $ 5-10 billion make up close to 36%- The vast majority of companies (91%) come from North America- By sector, the most comprehensive sector for LGBTs is IT (information technology), which accounts for over 30% of the index, compared with its share of the S&P 500 index, which stands at about 25%- In the S&P 500 index, while in the energy and real estate sectors their share is lower-
The bank specifically mentions 28 companies (most from the US, but also from Europe and Asia) that they say are suitable for investors who want to be exposed to this investment thesis- Among these companies are Samsung Electronics, Unilever, Anvidia, Moody’s, NASDAQ and Applied Materials-
The country that excels in LGBT rights: Malta
Credit Suisse economists generally point out, based on other studies, that currently the European country ranked first in LGBT rights is Malta with a score of 94% (with 0% indicating a complete violation of rights and 100% indicating full rights), followed by Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal and Norway-
The worst European country for LGBT people is Azerbaijan with 2%, followed by Russia and Poland-
In the US, according to another study cited by Credit Suisse, the degree of support for same-sex marriage was examined, when in 1996 the rate of support was about 30% compared to about 70% of opponents; in 2007-2008 the rate of supporters and opponents was the same while in 2020 The support rate was 67% and the resistance rate was 31%-