*Article by Williams Perdomo published in The American on 10/28/2022.
Investing and maintaining Christian values is possible. In fact, it is not something new and since at least the 1990s there are those who are dedicated to ensuring that conservative investors find companies that share their vision. This is the case of Wealth Management Group, which was one of the first firms to promote this idea in the United States.
Altum Faithful Investing, an investment fund that does not work with companies that promote abortion or ideas that go against the Christian faith, is working in the same direction.
Its CEO, Borja Barragán, is clear that it is possible to be successful in the world of business and finance while maintaining a Christian testimony. His intention is that entrepreneurs can invest in a way that is consistent with their beliefs.
“That anyone who wants to live with faith in each and every area of his or her life can do so. It is true that it seems that something like investment or economics, or deciding numbers, is far removed from the spiritual, but no,” said Barragan during a conversation with The American on a visit to his offices in Madrid.
“One can also give a Christian testimony when making any decision. In the end, when one seeks coherence, the way to put ourselves on the line is with our own actions. So, our own actions define us and also define our coherence. So what we do is to help Christian investors invest in a way that is consistent with their faith,” he added.
This is not his first attempt to promote investments that go hand in hand with Christian values. Before this project, Barragan had a Christian fund with Julius Baer bank.
The most important thing is not only to achieve a high return on investment for his clients. The intention is also to be an instrument that helps promote values such as family, life and faith. The company understands that in the world we live in, people are considering more their moral criteria when making decisions: “What we are seeing is that there is a boom in this need to live in truth and coherence”.
“What we have tried to do is to ground what the Church says regarding investment, which is the promotion of life, family, money, human dignity, care and protection of creation. If you notice, it is the legacy of the last three popes. What we have done is that everything that the Church has left us in theory, we have tried to bring it down to earth in the world of investment”.
Investment and the defense of Christian values
The main objective, explains its CEO, is to advise Christian-inspired entities in the management of their assets. However, he also stresses that he helps his professional clients in wealth management, consulting and tools that enable them to offer their clients an investment consistent with their faith.
This is not limited to Catholics, as they also accompany those who share Christian values from other currents, such as Protestants. For Barragán, Catholicism is universality and that is what he tries to promote from the firm.
“We accompany those who share Christian values. In fact, the feeling we have in the United States is that it is more Christian investing. Why? Because in terms of investment criteria we share 99.9% of the criteria, although we may have differences on the Virgin Mary or the sacraments. But as far as the application of Christian criteria is concerned, we fully agree,” he emphasizes.
The CEO of the firm explains that the company is in constant growth and in the next few days they will make announcements about people joining the project. He is also promoting the web application, which can be used by all citizens to know in which companies they are investing as entrepreneurs or as ordinary citizens.
With the application, people can see the values of all companies and thus know if they share the same values. For example, you can check Amazon -which is an application used by millions of people- and see if it is a company “not in accordance” with Catholic doctrine. In addition, it details which values it does not comply with.
Finally, the founder of the firm commented that its focus is to keep moving forward in the financial world and insisted that its main base is the defense of Christian values. That said, with the commitment to be successful.
“We are Catholics before we are financiers. But just as I would ask a Catholic architect not to let his house fall down and to act professionally when drawing up plans, we do strictly the same on the financial side. We are perfectly comparable to any other private bank or investment bank that provides financial advisory services,” he said.
