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Funds Group: Integrity Viking Funds

Management Company: Viking Fund Management, LLC

Funds Affected: Integrity Growth and Income Fund

Principal Sustainable Investment Management Strategy:

Summary:
Individual companies are selected by considering a number of factors that may include, but are not limited to, revenue growth, earnings growth rate, dividend yield, cash flow growth rate, price-to-earnings (P/E) and price-to-cash flow (P/CF) multiples, strength of balance sheet, and price momentum. Subject to its attention to ethical investment criteria as described below, the fund is not constrained by investments in any particular segment of the stock market.

Viking Fund Management tries to emphasize companies that it believes both offer attractive investment opportunities and demonstrate a positive awareness of their impact on the society in which they operate.

Potential investments for the fund are first selected for financial soundness and then evaluated according to the fund’s ethical investment criteria. The fund seeks to invest in companies that the Investment Adviser believes exhibit positive accomplishments with respect to one or more of the ethical factors.

Ethical factors considered may include:

In addition, Viking Fund Management takes environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into account, and does not intend to invest in companies that it believes derive revenue from gambling, firearms, pornography, or from the production of alcohol or tobacco.

 

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Research and analysis to keep sustainable investors up to-date on a broad range of topics that include trends and developments in sustainable investing and sustainable finance, regulatory updates, performance results and considerations, investing through index funds and actively managed portfolios, asset allocation updates, expenses, ESG ratings and data, company and product news, green, social and sustainable bonds, green bond funds as well as reporting and disclosure practices, to name just a few.

A continuously updated Funds Directory is also available to investors.  This is intended to become a comprehensive listing of sustainable mutual funds, ETFs and other investment products along with a description of their sustainable investing approaches as set out in fund prospectuses and related regulatory filings.

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Many questions have surfaced in recent years regarding sustainable and ESG investing.  Here, investors and financial intermediaries will find materials that describe the various approaches to sustainable investing and their implementation.  While sustainable investing approaches vary and they have thus far defied universally accepted definitions, many practitioners agree that they fall into the following broad categories:  Values-based investing, investing via exclusions, impact investing, thematic investments and ESG integration.  In conjunction with each of these approaches, investors may also adopt various issuer engagement procedures and proxy voting practices.  That said, sustainable investing approaches will continue to evolve.

In addition to periodic updates regarding sustainable investing and how this form of investing is evolving, investors and financial intermediaries interested in implementing a sustainable investing approach will also find source materials that cover basic investing themes as well as asset allocation tactics.

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Thoughts and ideas targeting sustainable investing strategies executed through various registered and non-registered sustainable investment funds and products such as mutual funds, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs), closed-end funds, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Unit Investment Trusts (UITs). Coverage extends to investment management firms as well as fund groups. 

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