Published: May 02, 2025

 

We are proud to announce the launch of our enhanced stewardship service. This is the first initiative of its kind in the UK and is a critical aspect of the £11 billion oversight and stewardship mandate that we announced in January this year.

Our new service enhances governance and ensures consistent voting for shares under pool management (, across all Partner Funds. It will cover more than 2,500 companies each year across 15 equity funds, with a combined assets under management of around £8.8 billion. Including fixed income assets, the total mandate value rises to approximately £11 billion.

This builds on our existing stewardship activities, where we already vote on behalf of £13.7 billion of assets across 3,100 companies. Collectively, we now cast votes on more than 15,000 resolutions every year.

Our objective with this service is to reduce the governance burden on Partner Funds while improving the consistency and quality of stewardship across all pooled assets. The new service aligns fully with our Stewardship Strategy, which was developed with and approved by our Partner Funds. We will continue to report progress through the Responsible Investment Working Group, to pension committees, and through regular stewardship reports.

The service provides full coverage of the FTSE All World Developed Index and significant coverage of the MSCI ACWI IMI Index.

This new development demonstrates our continued commitment to responsible investment and stewardship. It follows the important steps we took earlier this year to strengthen oversight and collaboration with our Partner Funds. We are proud to be delivering sustainable investment practices that create long-term value for Partner Funds, their members and the wider community.