BlackRock voted against management on one or more proposals at 42% of shareholder meetings between 1 July 2020 and 30 June this year, up from 39% the previous year, and revealed that corporate governance concerns prompted most of the votes against directors’ elections.
The latest BlackRock Investment Stewardship (BIS) report for the 2020-21 proxy voting year revealed that BIS voted on more than 64,000 director elections, voting against 10% for "falling short of our expectations". "We voted against one or more directors at over 3,400 companies globally. Corporate governance concerns - including lack of board independence, insufficient diversity, and executive compensation - prompted most of the votes against directors' elections," BIS stated. According to BlackRock, insufficient board gender diversity was the main reason for voting against a director...
To continue reading this article...
Join Investment Week for free
- Unlimited access to real-time news, analysis and opinion from the investment industry, including the Sustainable Hub covering fund news from the ESG space
- Get ahead of regulatory and technological changes affecting fund management
- Important and breaking news stories selected by the editors delivered straight to your inbox each day
- Weekly members-only newsletter with exclusive opinion pieces from leading industry experts
- Be the first to hear about our extensive events schedule and awards programmes