Invesco Advisers, Inc. has agreed to pay $17.5 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission for making misleading statements about the percentage of company-wide assets under management that integrated environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in investment decisions.
According to the SEC's order, from 2020 to 2022, the Atlanta-based registered investment advisor told clients and stated in marketing materials that between 70 and 94% of its parent company's assets under management were "ESG integrated."
"However, in reality, these percentages included a substantial amount of assets that were held in passive ETFs that did not consider ESG factors in investment decisions," the SEC order states.
This included Invesco's largest ETF, the Invesco QQQ Trust — an index product designed to track the 100 largest non-financial companies traded on the Nasdaq exchange, the order states.
Furthermore, the SEC's order found that Invesco lacked any written policy defining ESG integration.
Moreover, the order states, Invesco had no comprehensive set of written policies and procedures concerning how Invesco would determine the percentage of firmwide AUM that was ESG integrated.
