Managed funds topped the ESG category in Rainmaker Information’s latest leagues table, with Munro Partners’ decarbonisation-focused fund outperforming its peers.

In the May 2025 Wholesale Managed Funds Report, the Munro Climate Change Leaders Fund, with $73 million in assets under management (AUM), achieved 25.8% p.a. for a three-year period. In the 12 months to May, it made 23.3% p.a.

The fund invests in companies that are climate-change leaders and enable decarbonisation. Some of the top holdings are GE Verona, Linde, Siemens Energy and Nextera Energy.

In the May update to investors, Munro said the temporary de-escalation of trade tensions also provided a necessary boost to investor sentiment.

“Constellation Energy (Clean Energy) rebounded strongly after announcing positive long-term power offtake discussions with data centre customers. Siemens Energy (Clean Energy) rose on strong order activity in the power equipment space, most notably a US$14.2 billion order awarded to GE Vernova (Clean Energy) to provide new power generation and grid equipment to Saudi Arabia,” Munro said.

Coming in second place in Rainmaker’s report, Pengana’s High Conviction Equities Fund, with $45 million in AUM, returned 22.6% p.a. for three years. Over the 12 months, however, it barely made 1% p.a.

The BetaShares Global Sustainability Leaders ETF was the only indexed fund to make the top 10 list of best performers, reporting 19.7% p.a. for the annualised three-year time horizon.

It had $3.5 billion in AUM at the end of May, making it the largest in terms of asset size in the leagues table of 40 products.

Franklin Templeton’s Global Responsible Investment Fund, Pengana’s Axiom International Ethical Fund, U Ethical’s International Equities Trust and Candriam’s Sustainable Global Equity Fund – all unit trusts – achieved between 17.3%-17.6% p.a. respectively.