Sustainable investments are increasingly leaving their niche position to enter financial markets in a remarkable way in recent years. In this scenario, ESG (Enviromental, Social, Governance) practices are emerging alongside the risk-return approaches that for years have exclusively determined the portfolio choices of investors. This paper aims to give a contribution to the flourishing debate on the application of ESG criteria to investments’ selection, using a case study through a benchmarking approach. The empirical investigation focuses on a two-level analysis of GIS Global Bond ESG Fund (EUR Hedged), managed by PIMCO management company. Results highlight that ESG practises should be referred more as a complementary rather than alternative approach for portfolio management.

The time lag between a business transaction and its payment has generated significant problems in the financial capacity of Italian firms over time. The development of technology applied to finance (FinTech) can offer a useful alternative to mitigate this problem; among the new different forms of financing, invoice trading is a recently developed technique that already shows positive signs of response from companies. This paper aims to make an empirical contribution by investigating the profile of Italian firms using invoice trading as a source of short-term funding, according to their demographics (sectors/geographical regions/lifecycle phase), financials (turnover, credit) and creditworthiness (acceptance/rejection of applications). The analysis, furthermore, draws on survey data collected among all invoice trading platforms active in Italy as of June, 2018. Results show that the number of applications is very high, even if it still corresponds to a limited success rate, due to the low creditworthiness profile of firms.

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