Pax fund focuses on firms that empower women

A woman’s place is in the House and Senate, said the late feminist and congresswoman Bella Abzug. Today, include the marketplace as well.

“We are living in a time when people are beginning to realize that gender inequality holds back economies, holds back societies and holds back progress,” said Joe Keefe, chief executive of Pax World Management Corp., a socially conscious mutual fund company based in Portsmouth, N.H.

Pax World’s Women’s Equity Fund (PXWEX) selects stocks based on how well a company attracts women, advances the empowerment of women and promotes women to executive positions as well as to boards. According to Morningstar Inc. of Chicago, the fund has the most extensive focus on women’s equality issues of any mutual fund company.

Also, the analysis reviews the number of female-owned companies used as vendors or service providers and if women are presented in advertisements in a negative way.

Women’s Equity Fund had $38.4 million in assets in assets under management as of Nov. 30.

In a strategic move in October, Pax World acquired the assets of San Francisco-based Femmx Financial Co., investment adviser for the Professionally Managed Portfolios’ Women’s Equity Fund of San Francisco and merged them into the Pax World’s Women’s Equity Fund.