ick Fuscone believes so strongly in good corporate citizenship that he and colleagues at investment firm Dover Management only invest in companies where corporate bosses have demonstrated a high level of transparency and responsibility in the running of their operations.

The reason? Mr. Fuscone, a veteran of the financial services sector, said he believes strongly, and based on experience, that good corporate governance is the underpinning of a company that will perform well for all stakeholders.

Mr. Fuscone, the chairman and founder of Dover ? a Greenwich, Connecticut-based private investment firm ? is on the Island this week to share his views on corporate responsibility at a forum hosted by the Bermuda International Business Association (BIBA) on Tuesday morning on that very topic.

Mr. Fuscone, who was formerly an executive chairman of Merrill Lynch, said: ?The underpinning of our thesis is that companies that are principled in their management, oversight and conduct are able to perform better and will out compete others in the same sector.?

But he stressed that Dover ? which was set up in April, 2001 and currently runs one alternative investment fund (from Delaware and Bermuda) with plans to roll out others later this year ? does not have an exclusionary approach to investing as do some ?social? funds.

He characterised Dover as taking a traditional approach to picking which companies it invests in, but said that included a stringent analysis of (150 checkpoints) a corporation?s balance sheet.

?We were established in 2001 with the express mission of establishing a family of alternative investment funds of high competitive performance (in terms of preservation of capital and appreciation) but with a unique corporate responsibility dimension.?

Although believing that corporate responsibility is necessary to a business that wants to post strong results, Mr. Fuscone said more pressure must be put on corporations from investors.

?The real motivating reason was that it was clear to me that there was a very serious lack of confidence by market participants ? from both issuers and investors, as well as concerns on the part of intermediaries.

?All of this was really driven, in our interpretation, by the fact that we had over many years been deluded that companies that performed well quarter-to-quarter were, by corollary, good companies.?

He continued: ?It became the mission of Dover to set down a broader set of criteria for investment analysis; to follow a strategy of principled investing to not only fulfill but to exceed objectives.?

Although there has been a real focus on corporate governance, including legislative changes, after a wave of high-profile corporate scandals in recent years, Mr. Fuscone said more needs to be done.

To that end, he hopes that Dover?s approach will eventually be adopted by others.

?Dover is the only firm that has elected to develop a methodology that combines traditional perfomance analysis with corporate governance; we like to be a leader but would also like to see it expand. Broad acceptance requires replication.?

e said that he also felt that a higher level of transparency in financial reporting now made law for US-listed corporations, should also be assumed by private firms seeking capital.

Although Dover opened its doors more than two years ago, Mr. Fuscone said their first fund was only launched earlier this year because they have taken the time to get their approach just right.

?We have tried to do it in an empirical, analytical way that means we are just hitting the ground. In the two and a half years since we set up we have been developing and refining intellectual capital that is the underpinning of the business.?

As for Dover?s first fund, Mr. Fuscone said: ?The analytics are built around picking a finite group of about 100 companies that are financially sound and meet corporate responsibility criteria.

?Our question, as part of traditional, fundamental research and proprietary analysis of corporate transparency is: ?Is the window sufficiently clear that we can make a sound investment of corporate governance,?? he said.

Mr. Fuscone said that, at Dover, corporate responsibility was defined as an obligation to give back to a broad group of stakeholders.

That includes, he said, giving back in a number of ways from solid financial returns to philanthropic giving.

?Philanthropy is a way to serve identification of (a company?s) brand and culture; not social strictly for social purposes, it also serves a corporate purpose.

?There should be both wealth for the community and greater shareholder wealth.?

r. Fuscone said that so far Dover had invested in US-based multinational corporations at both the large and mid-cap levels, with investments in such companies as Starbucks, Target, Pfizer and Microsoft.

But he said that they would eventually look beyond American borders to make investments more internationally.

s for having bases for Dover?s first fund in both Delaware and Bermuda, Mr. Fuscone said this was to allow access to more than just an American audience of investors. Later this year, Dover plans to roll out a hedge fund, a fund that invests in private firms, a public mutual fund, and a fixed-income fund all under same moniker of ?corporate responsibility funds?.

?After what we have seen in the market, in the midst of the corporate crises that we have had, the most apparent and broadly based response has been legislative and regulatory action being taken hopefully to penalise the violators and manage expectations.

?But our perspective is that while this was an important, and rather expected, development it is not sufficient to foster principled management and broader disclosure.

?We feel the only arbiter of that can be the marketplace. Unless there is sufficient demand by market participants; it is not going to happen as naturally as it should. It is our contention that there is a premium in responsibility.

?That is the overarching objective of Dover; to find value in the marketplace, based on corporate governance being a significant factor in performance.?

@EDITRULE:

To hear more from Rick Fuscone, attend BIBA?s breakfast forum and workshop on corporate responsibility on Tuesday at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, beginning at 8.30 a.m.

Director of Immigration Rozy Azhar will also discuss the ways in which companies doing business in Bermuda can go about achieving the Department of Immigration?s ?Good Corporate Citizenship? Status, a prerequisite for firms who want to apply for work permit holders to be considered as ?key? employees.