Company consecrated to the Sacred Heart seeks to evangelize the financial world

Seven years ago, after a trajectory in the world of banking and international investment, Borja Barragan decided to found Altum Faithful Investinga Spanish company consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus that seeks to evangelize the world of finance providing investment criteria based on the social doctrine of the Church (DSI).

The Altum headquarters is in an office building with the glass facade, in which the light enters the dudual, but not only. In a discreet space, just entering the door, there is the place that really illuminates the company: a small oratory with a recliner, a small altar and a crucifix, next to an image relative to the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to San Juan (Lead to highRead Mar in), which gives name to the company.

In conversation with ACI Press, Barragán explains that it does not refer so much to the miraculous fishing that is narrated, but to the invitation that Christ, through his apostles, makes the Catholics of all time: “Remad Mar in, dare to get out of that lethargy and this spiritual sadness, that acedía that you have.”

The response to this invitation for the Catholic inverter, according to Barragán’s vision, is “that the Catholic investor dares out of comfort and that lethargy of conventional investment and dares to say: I also want to follow the Lord in how I manage my heritage.”

Altum’s adventure began a few years ago, when Barragán and his wife, after performing the Master’s Degree in the family pastoral of the Juan Pablo II Institute of the family, rediscovered their marriage vocation and decided to put God at the center of their lives.

“At the moment you do that the rest of things begin to order. You start with your marriage, then with your hobbies, then with your friends and, of course, the work part,” explains Barragán.

This conversion process in the business world was also promoted by the conversations held by the founder of Altum with a religious who also studied the master’s degree and that in his secular life had worked in the financial world.

Talking about the need for coherence in investments within the Church was a revulsive: “That made me think a lot. It was an agitation of the awareness of saying: well, and I, the talents that God has given me, how do I want to put them at the service of institutions that really matter to me and that have been accompanying me all my life?” Barragán reflected.

Then a period of discernment of six months began in which he sought answer to some questions: “Is there any way to do things better? Is there any way in which you can have a unity of life in which what I think can be implemented 100% in my own work?”

Thus, it is like “with a very clear intention, evangelizing the world of finance,” Altum was born.

Barragán believes that the financial world is not a more difficult environment to apply the social doctrine of the church than others. The trick is to ask about the good or service we offer: “Does it generate a common good or only a good for a few? I believe that this approach can be done all in any job we are,” Barragán is convinced.

A team for the Catholic filtering of the companies

Once the general principle of action is defined, it is time to land the vast social magisterium of the Catholic Church, which has an essential pillar in the encyclical Of the revolutionary of Leon XIII.

“From there, a teaching has been generated, which dictates a series of moral norms based on theology and morals. What do we do? We are neither the most ready, nor the most handsome, nor the bravest. What we do is apply professionalism in such a way that these criteria are landed to the concrete world of the investment that, in the background, is the role of the laity,” explains Barragán.

To do this, Altum has a team of professionals dedicated to the Catholic filtering of companies (Catholic screening) that analyzes the companies one by one, following the classical methodology “see, judge, act” and looking especially in two aspects:

“The first is the activity of the company. Is that activity that develops conflict with the social doctrine of the Church? Yes or no. And, the second aspect is about the practices that the company develops. How is the company positioned at the public level?” Barragán states, before offering a simple example:

“We can invest in a company that makes pen. The concrete activity of making pen in principle does not conflict with the DSI. However, if this company, within its philanthropic policy, is donating millions of dollars to a lobby such as Planned Parenthood, at least the Catholic investor should consider if with its money you want to be supporting that type of initiatives.”

Thus, Altum has developed investment guides based on the attention to four pillars especially present in the teaching of the last pontificate before the election of Leo XIV. They refer to the promotion of life and family (John Paul II), human dignity (Benedict XVI) and the care and protection of creation (Francisco).

Catholic investment is less profitable?

One of the ideas that fights with his work The Altum team is one that considers that the investment in Catholic code offers less pecuniary performance.

“It is very curious that there is a great social perception that incorporating ethical or moral criteria into your investment portfolio will imply a profitability sacrifice. And this is something that must be demystified,” Barragán emphasizes.

The entrepreneur is convinced that “invest in companies that do not conflict with faith and that, of course, the result from the financial point of view, what is the performance that you are going to receive from your investments, is at least as good as the conventional investment or secular investment”.

Shareholders with Catholic vote

This complete service only half of what Altum wants to contribute. To “close the circle of investment consistent with faith,” explains Barragán, are developing a tool for individual investors to vote at shareholders’ boards with Catholic criteria. Is what they call Altum Catholic Proxy Voting.

To the extent that the shareholder owns the company in a proportional part, the Barragán team wants to “provide the necessary tools for investors, whether they are retail and if they are large investment funds, they can vote in those shareholders boards in a sense that does not enter conflict with faith”.

“We want something that may seem so far to the spiritual, as is the fact of investing, it really can also incorporate Christ in that decision process of what you do with your money,” summarizes Barragán who, before starting the interview, was entrusted to the Holy Spirit.