BUPA Finance plc

Description We are an international healthcare company. With no shareholders, our customers are our focus. We reinvest profits into providing more and better healthcare for the benefit of current and future customers. We have 16.7 million health insurance customers, provide healthcare to around 15 million people in our clinics, hospitals and dental centres and look after over 22,300 aged care residents in our care homes and villages. Approach Our approach to Responsible Investment views Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors as both risks to the long-term performance of our cash and financial investments, and opportunities to improve the impact of investments on society and the environment. Our investment portfolio is primarily invested in cash and deposits, but with an allocation to bonds and loans which are managed by 3rd party asset managers. Our Board-approved responsible investment approach includes several requirements. Firstly, that we integrate ESG factors in the investment decision-making process. This is supported by the use of external ESG ratings and our policy requires that we restrict investment in issuers with ESG scores that are deemed to be too low. We train our investment staff on management of ESG risks and require our external asset managers to be active owners of securities, challenging issuers of bonds which exhibit poor ESG practises. Our Responsible Investment approach prevents investment in companies defined internally as having operations focussed on coal production, extraction of oil from Tar Sands, creation of controversial weapons such as cluster munitions, or the manufacture of tobacco products. Further information regarding our approach to Responsible Investment is available on bupa.com