Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, Inc., a global leader in environmental and social investment research, announced today that it had joined with ABF Capital Management, a subsidiary of Credit Lyonnais Asset Management, in the launch of the new ABF Green Planet Fund.

Headquartered in Paris, ABF Capital will be offering the Luxembourg-based fund to institutional clients in France, Spain, and the Netherlands. In addition to the asset management expertise of ABF, the fund will focus on the company-specific Innovest environmental rating system implemented through the firm's proprietary EcoValue'21 methodology.

"Product development and identification of tomorrow's value drivers have always been the cornerstones of ABF's development strategy," said Xavier de Bayser, President and Chief Executive Officer of ABF. "We believe that environmental criteria are essential in identifying intangible value that companies can generate tomorrow, and we are delighted to undertake this joint venture with Innovest, a prestigious partner who was recently named one of the "best in class" research firms out of 24 analytical/screening organizations around the world by The Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research."

"The EcoValue'21 model was precisely designed to capitalize on environmental drivers and unveil hidden-value potential mostly untapped by traditional financial analysis, " said Hewson Baltzell, CEO of Innovest "The partnership with ABF, which combines their quantitative tools and state of the art management process, along with the Innovest research overlay, truly creates a win-win for the investor."

Innovest Strategic Value Advisors is an internationally recognized investment research and advisory firm specializing in analyzing companies' environmental and social performance and their impact on competitiveness, profitability, and share price performance. The firm currently has over $US 900-million under direct sub-advisory mandates with partners including ABN-AMRO, Mellon Capital, Brown Brothers Harriman, Glenmede Trust Company, and T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.

Innovest's chairman, Jim Martin, was the chief investment officer for TIAA-CREF, North America's largest pension fund for over fifteen years, and the firm's other directors and principals include former senior executives from several of the world's leading financial companies. Innovest's flagship product is the EcoValue'21 investment analytics platform. The firm is headquartered in New York with offices in Toronto and London and the website is www.innovestgroup.com.

Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, Inc.

Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, Inc.

Innovest Strategic Value Advisors is an internationally recognized investment research and advisory firm specializing in analyzing companies’ performance on environmental, social, and strategic governance issues, with a particular focus on their impact on competitiveness, profitability, and share price performance. Innovest currently has offices in New York City, Toronto, San Francisco, London, Paris, Sydney, and Tokyo.

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