Neil Smith Consultancy Inc

Ethical Investing

Ethical Investing, Socially Responsible Investing, or Sustainable Responsible Investing (SRI)

It's all about the integration of your personal values with your investment decisions.

SRI is an approach to investing that considers both the profit potential as well as the investment’s impact on society and the environment.

Most investors are looking for the following from their Investments:

• Investments with adequate financial returns
• Investments which are secure.
• and finally Investments which are ethical.

SRI may avoid investments in industries such as gaming, tobacco, armaments or uranium mining and companies with little regard for the environment, governance, and labour and human rights. On the other hand, SRI may also actively seek out profitable 'industries of the future' that are positive for society and the environment such as renewable energy, biotechnology, water management, waste management and health care.

SRI Investors use four basic strategies to maximize financial return and attempt to maximize social good:

• Screen out Unethical Investments

• Divesting Negative Investments

• Choose Positive Investments.

• Shareholder activism

Screening excludes certain securities from investment consideration based on social and/or environmental criteria. For example, many socially responsible investors screen out all potential investments in tobacco related companies.

Divesting is the act of removing stocks from an existing portfolio based on mainly ethical, non- financial reasons.

Positive investing involves making investments in activities and companies believed to have a high and positive social impact. Positive investing activities can also target under served communities. like supporting activities designed to provide mortgage and small business credit to minority and low-income communities or AIDS vaccines to Africa.

Shareholder activism efforts attempt to positively influence corporate behavior. These efforts include initiating conversations with corporate management on issues of concern, and submitting and voting proxy resolutions. These activities are undertaken with the belief that social investors, working cooperatively, can steer management on a course that will improve financial performance over time and enhance the well being of the stockholders, customers, employees, vendors, and communities.

On line Investor Relations and Administration

We can partner with you to build shareholder value.

The Internet allows companies to reach stakeholders such as investors, the media and current and prospective employees in a timely and engaging way. It has many advantages over the standard way companies communicate with their stakeholders - through hard copy publications.

Many companies, especially small corportaes, have little time or knowledge to develop up a comprehensive and professional internet presence. Neil R Smith Consultancy can help you.

From our experiences in investor relations in major corporations and through our partners we can offer a wide range of online corporate communications services and solutions to help you take advantage of this opportunity.

Our services include corporate websites, investor websites and intranets, share price feeds and website tools, as well as document conversion, webcasting, professional and accessibility services. The websites we and our partners design and build, and the services we offer, are of the highest quality, with many of our clients winning awards and industry recognition for their online corporate communications.

Services we Can Provide

Neil R Smith Consultancy can provide:

Risk assessment
We will review your portfolio highlighting risks such as: leverage, liquidity & credit

Ethical investing strategies
We will analyze your portfolio and propose strategies to realize your ethical & social investing requirements.

Investor relations
We can recommend and help you to implement detailed investor communication strategies.

Specialized alternative financing
We will research & recommend sophisticated alternative financing products to best fit your financing requirements

Business continuity
We will analyze business continuity needs & help you to implement and test a suitable crisis recovery processes.

Manager due diligence
We will help you identify appropriate portfolio mangers and provide ongoing performance reviews.

Business Continuity

Business continuity management and contingency planning are essential and unavoidable tasks. However the survivability and continuity of your business are key risks that need to be addressed by all businesses - large and small.

The creation of a sound continuity and contingency plan is a complex undertaking, involving a number of stages and discrete activities.

Initially it is necessary to understand the underlying risks and the potential impacts of disaster. These are the building blocks upon which a sensible business continuity plan or disaster recovery plan should be built. A business impact study is extremely helpful here.

The plan itself must then be created. This is not a trivial project. It must be comprehensive. It must have "buy in" not just from senior executives but all your employees. This is serious.

Once the plan is established and accepted, the business should establish a maintenance and testing program, to ensure that the plan remains current. Having developed the business continuity plan, it is sensible to perform an audit, not just initially, but at regular intervals. This helps ensure that your plan remains current, and that it stands up to rigorous examination. Equally important are periodic checks on 'business as usual' contingency practices.

All organisations should develop a comprehensive Business Continuity Plan.

• A formal risk assessment should be undertaken in order to determine the requirements for the Business Continuity Plan.

• The Business Continuity Plan should cover all essential and critical business activities.

• The Business Continuity Plan should be periodically tested in a simulated environment to ensure that it can be implemented in emergency situations and that the management and staff understand how it is to be executed.

• All staff must be made aware of the Business Continuity Plan and their own respective roles.

• The Business Continuity Plan should be kept up to date to take into account changing circumstances.

Neil R Smith Consultancy can help you address all you Business Continuity and Crisis Management needs.