LGBT actions outweigh market performance, says Bank

                            

Sao Paulo-The stocks of companies with women on their boards or employees of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) occupying leadership positions often have better performance than those that have not. That's what showed a study by Credit Suisse disclosed in April.

The Bank has compiled the performance of 270 companies with LGBT leaders and compared with the MSCI ACWI (index that reflects the performance of the main developed and emerging stock markets) and with a basket of large and medium-sized enterprises in the North America, Europe and Australia (the three pró-LGBT regions, according to the Credit).

The result showed that the index had superior performance to that of LGBT MSCI ACWI at 3% a year from 2010. Against the basket of companies in three regions, the performance was superior in 140 basis points a year.

The portfolio of diversity assembled by Credit Suisse has 270 companies that, according to the Bank, or have reportedly LGBT leaders or are part of rankings of the largest LGBT employers raised by groups like Stonewall (United Kingdom) or DiversityInc (USA), for example.

Almost 60% of the companies in the index are included in LGBT three sectors: information technology (24%), finance (19%) and basic consumption (16%).

"Our hypothesis remains that diversity brings financial benefits to both companies and investors", stated in a report analysts Julia Dawson, Stefano Natella, Richard Kersley, Rose Thomas and Brandon Vair.

According to the survey prepared by the Bank, in addition to the actions they haveperformed better, the ROE (return on equity) and the CFROI (cash flow return on investment) of the companies in the index are 10% LGBT 21% greater than those of theMSCI ACWI companies, while generating profit is double.

"Differences in leverage or dividends [part of profit distributed among the shareholders] do not explain the difference of Returns or the performance of the shares," said Credit Suisse's analysis team.

"As is usual in this field of research, we can only draw associations, and not causality. The best companies have best LGBT policies and therefore attract more LGBT employees or LGBT employees make the best companies? Probably both, "completed.

Women also help to make a difference in the performance of actions. According to the study from the Bank, companies with at least one Director submitted in the last ten years compound annual growth rate (CAGR) 3.4% higher than companies with 100% of the Board formed by men.