By Edd Micklem, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Tumelo.
Across the investment space, asset owners and managers are leveraging new ways to customise stewardship.
Using ProxySphere, Tumelo's pass-through voting product, investors have the flexibility to implement their stewardship priorities in different ways.
Here are some examples:
SEI Investments’ new Vote Choice program, built on ProxySphere technology, gives asset owners the ability to choose a voting policy that reflects their specific investment principles. For example, a number of US Taft-Hartley pension plans are now able to align their proxy voting directly with labour and social priorities — bringing their members’ values and long-term objectives to the forefront of every decision.
Some of Legal & General's clients such as Valero, a DC pension plan, are choosing to vote only on a select number of issuers or issues that are most material to their portfolios, demonstrating how ProxySphere supports targeted engagement without adding complexity.
State Street Investment Management (SSIM) is leveraging ProxySphere across ETFs and SICAVs, empowering clients such as LGT Wealth Management to select a preferred voting policy. This flexibility allows the likes of LGT — which is voting across multiple managers – to align their portfolio.
Several institutional investors are already realising the benefits of this tailored approach:
Camden and Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) have aligned their entire portfolios' voting through a custom PIRC policy.
SAUL has applied a PIRC policy to its top 1,000 holdings while delegating the rest to its fund manager.
Bedfordshire vote in alignment with LAPFF alerts across 50-70 significant AGMs.
Brunel takes selective overrides on specific votes while maintaining delegated management for others.
ProxySphere enables asset managers to win and retain clients by partnering closely to build custom stewardship solutions.